11 h 21 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 11 h 21 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the love that shapes your life is the one you must never claim?
Félix de Vandenesse longs for the tenderness his childhood denies him. In the green valley of Touraine, he finds Henriette, Madame de Mortsauf: an intelligent, devout wife and mother. Their love grows, but she holds to her marriage vows. For Félix, closeness brings both comfort and the pain of waiting.
In The Lily of the Valley, Honoré de Balzac tells this story through Félix’s confession to his lover, Natalie de Manerville. Around Henriette stand a suspicious husband worn down by exile and illness, and frail children who need her care. Desire presses against duty, while Félix’s account asks you to weigh the feelings of a witness who is never neutral.
What you’ll discover
- A heart shaped by loneliness Follow Félix from an unloved childhood into a longing for tenderness that shapes his deepest love.
- A woman holding firm Meet Henriette, whose love for Félix strains against her faith and her responsibilities at home.
- A troubled household Enter Clochegourd, where a difficult husband and vulnerable children make private longing harder to bear.
- A valley alive with feeling Discover how Touraine’s landscape and flowers become part of Félix’s intimate account of love.
- A confession worth questioning Listen closely as Félix tells Natalie about the love that shapes him, in his own words.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love romantic and psychological fiction, French literature, and stories of restrained passion. It suits anyone drawn to landscape, letters, and people who feel more than they can say.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A neglected boy learns to live alone
- One kiss at a ball changes everything
- The valley, the château and the count
- Backgammon, a confession, and a secret name
- Flowers, harvests and a quiet household
- A letter of advice for the world
- A king's messenger and a house in crisis
- An Englishwoman enters his life
- What the story is really about
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- Felix de VandenesseA lonely, neglected young man from Touraine who tells the story and longs for a love that will never fail him.
- Madame de Mortsauf (Henriette)A gentle, devout countess who runs a struggling estate, guards her sick children, and holds back her own heart out of duty.
- Comte de MortsaufHenriette's husband, a broken royalist exile whose illness makes him hard on his family, though he is brave and loyal.
- MadeleineThe countess's daughter, a frail child who grows into a proud, resolute young woman devoted to her mother.
- JacquesThe countess's delicate son, loved fiercely by his mother, who hopes to see him grow strong and take his name in Paris.
- Lady Dudley (Arabella)A dazzling English marchioness, an expert rider, who sets out to win Felix and seeks passion and public admiration.
- Natalie de ManervilleThe woman Felix loves in the present, who asks him for his history and answers him in her own voice.
Formats and delivery
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- Large print hardcover
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The Lily of the Valley
by Honoré de Balzac · 1835
A shy young man kisses a stranger's bare shoulders at a ball and spends years loving her in a Touraine valley.
Medium level10–20 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
What happens to a boy who has never been loved when a woman finally looks at him with kindness? That question drives The Lily of the Valley, a novel by Honoré de Balzac, first published in the mid 1830s as part of his Human Comedy.
The Lily of the Valley at a glance
- Reading time
- About 6 h 45 min5 h 20 min fast, 8 h slow
- Length
- 96,400 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1835by Honoré de Balzac
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A neglected boy learns to live alone
Felix says nothing about him makes sense without his childhood. Born into an old family in Tours, he is sent to a country wet nurse and forgotten for more than three years. At home his mother greets him with coldness, and his brother and sisters torment him. He grows up with a loving nature and nobody to love.
One scene shows the pattern. He crouches under a fig tree watching a star while his sisters play. The governess blames him for a flooded garden that his sisters made, and he is punished and mocked for his star. At school he spends eight years without a single visit. He wins the top prizes, yet no parent sits in the theater, and that night he burns his crowns in the stove.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1835
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 7 h 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Balzac, Honoré de. The Lily of the Valley. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lily-of-the-valley.
Balzac, H. de. (2026). The lily of the valley. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lily-of-the-valley (Original work published 1835)
Balzac, Honoré de. The Lily of the Valley. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lily-of-the-valley.
@book{balzac2026lily,
author = {Balzac, Honoré de},
title = {The Lily of the Valley},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-lily-of-the-valley},
note = {First published 1835}
}
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What is The Lily of the Valley about?
It is a letter in which Felix de Vandenesse tells his lover about his lonely youth and his great love for a married woman, Madame de Mortsauf, in the valley of the Indre, and about the second woman who enters his life.
Who is the Lily of the Valley in the novel?
She is Henriette de Mortsauf, the countess who lives at Clochegourde. Felix calls her the lily because of her purity, her white dresses, and the way she seems to bloom alone in her quiet valley, like a flower.
Is The Lily of the Valley a true story?
It is fiction. Balzac wrote it in the mid 1830s as part of The Human Comedy, and it is set in Touraine in the years after Napoleon. Real places and political events frame the invented characters.
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.
More by Honoré de Balzac
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