Father Goriot

Set in a shabby Paris boarding house during the Bourbon Restoration, this novel binds together the fates of a retired merchant who has beggared himself for two ungrateful daughters, a hidden master criminal named Vautrin, and Eugene de Rastignac, a poor law student hungry for society’s rewards. As Rastignac learns how Parisian wealth and status are really won, old Goriot’s ruinous love plays out like a domestic version of King Lear. Balzac makes the house on the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve a whole social world in miniature. A cornerstone of La Comedie humaine, it introduces characters who reappear across the series and closes on one of literature’s great declarations of ambition. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to read and download here.