11 h 44 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does it cost to rise in a city where money opens doors and love empties pockets?
In Paris in 1819, poor law student Eugène de Rastignac wants to make his name. His home is the shabby Maison Vauquer, but his eyes turn toward glittering drawing rooms. With his cousin Madame de Beauséant as his guide, he begins to learn what fashionable society demands.
Down the hall lives Father Goriot, a retired pasta merchant who gives nearly everything to his daughters, Anastasie and Delphine. As Rastignac watches the old man's devotion, another lodger offers a harsher lesson. Vautrin believes success belongs to those who ignore the rules. Between ambition and affection, every choice carries a cost.
What you’ll discover
- A city hungry for status Follow the struggle between old titles and new money through Parisian drawing rooms.
- A father's costly love Meet Goriot, whose devotion to his daughters leaves him with almost nothing.
- Ambition under pressure Watch Rastignac learn society's rules while trying to find his own way forward.
- Vautrin's dangerous appeal Encounter a cheerful, worldly lodger whose advice puts the price of success in sharp focus.
- Rooms that reveal lives Enter damp halls and glittering salons where furniture, manners, and money reveal social rank.
Who will love it
For readers who love social novels full of money, ambition and sharp portraits of a whole city, and anyone curious about Balzac and The Human Comedy.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A shabby boarding house holds a whole society
- A young man arrives with hunger in his eyes
- Goriot's secret visitors and strange habits
- A blunder in a countess's drawing room
- Vautrin teaches the cynical lesson plainly
- What a father will give, and what he is asked
- Rastignac and Delphine draw closer
- A dangerous offer and a house in decline
- What the novel says about love, money and Paris
- How Balzac tells it, from rooms to the whole city
Who’s who
- Eugène de RastignacA young law student from a poor noble family in the south, he wants to rise in Paris society.
- Father GoriotA retired pasta merchant who lives in the boarding house and has given nearly everything he owns to his two daughters.
- VautrinA hearty, worldly lodger with a hidden past, who believes success in Paris belongs to those who ignore the rules.
- Delphine de NucingenGoriot's younger daughter, married to a banker, lonely and eager for love and a place in fashionable society.
- Anastasie de RestaudGoriot's elder daughter, a countess whose household and love affair keep her in constant need of money.
- Madame de BeauséantRastignac's cousin, a Vicomtesse at the center of high society, who teaches him how the world works.
- Madame VauquerThe widow who runs the boarding house and judges every lodger by what he can pay.
- Victorine TailleferA gentle, poor young lodger whose wealthy father refuses to recognize her.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 11 h 44 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Papà Goriot
by Honoré de Balzac · 1835
In a shabby Paris boarding house, a poor law student learns what a place in society costs those who love him.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 10
A shabby boarding house holds a whole society
The novel opens with a long portrait of the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in a poor district of Paris. Balzac describes the damp walls, the greasy dining room, the smell of old cooking and the worn furniture. He does this on purpose. For him, a place shapes the people who live in it, and the house is a small model of the world outside.
The owner is Madame Vauquer, a widow who watches every candle and every slice of bread. She is a shrewd woman who judges people by what they can pay. Her boarders pay little and receive little, and she feeds them just enough to keep them from leaving. Over the years she has learned to read every lodger by the state of his coat.
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What is Father Goriot about?
It follows a young law student, Rastignac, learning how ambition works in 1819 Paris, while he lives beside an old man who has given all his money to two daughters who barely visit him.
Is Father Goriot part of The Human Comedy?
Yes. Balzac placed it in his large series of linked novels about French society. Characters such as Rastignac and Vautrin appear again in other books of the series.
When was Father Goriot written and where is it set?
Balzac published it in 1835. The story is set in 1819, in Paris, mainly in a boarding house on the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève and in the fashionable salons of the city.
The author
Honoré de Balzac
1799–1850 · French novelist
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright born in Tours in 1799. He lived and worked in Paris, where he died in 1850. He wrote The Magic Skin in 1831, Eugénie Grandet in 1833, and Father Goriot in 1835. Many of his works belong to La Comédie humaine.
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