Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gobseck | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 2 | A Second Home | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 3 | Sarrasine | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 4 | An Episode Under The Terror | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 5 | The Elixir of Life | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 6 | Study of a Woman | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 7 | A Passion in the Desert | 1830 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 8 | The Red Inn | 1831 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 9 | The Recruit | 1831 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 10 | Maitre Cornelius | 1831 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 11 | The Hidden Masterpiece | 1831 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 12 | The Magic Skin | 1831 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 13 | Colonel Chabert | 1832 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 14 | The Vicar Of Tours | 1832 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 15 | History of the Thirteen | 1833 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 16 | The Old Maid, [and] the Cabinet of Antiquities | 1836 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 17 | The Girl with the Golden Eyes | 1835 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 18 | The Illustrious Gaudissart | 1833 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 19 | The Country Doctor | 1833 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 20 | A Drama on the Seashore | 1835 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 21 | Father Goriot | 1835 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 22 | The Commission In Lunacy | 1836 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 23 | A Daughter Of Eve | 1838 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 24 | Beatrix | 1839 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 25 | Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life / A Harlot High and Low | 1838 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 26 | The Village Rector | 1839 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 27 | The Celibates | 1832 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 28 | The Physiology of Marriage | 1829 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 29 | Catherine De Medici | 1841 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 30 | A Start In Life | 1842 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 31 | The Two Brothers | 1842 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 32 | A Man of Business | 1845 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 33 | Modeste Mignon | 1844 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 34 | Unconscious Comedians | 1847 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
| 35 | The Chouans | 1829 | Honore de Balzac | Buy |
The Human Comedy (La Comedie humaine) is Honore de Balzac’s master project, a collection of more than 90 novels and stories written between 1829 and 1848. The works are connected through recurring characters who appear across different books, sometimes as leads and sometimes in minor roles. Balzac organized them into three broad categories: Studies of Manners, Philosophical Studies, and Analytical Studies.
The Studies of Manners section is the largest and contains his best-known works, including Father Goriot, The Girl with the Golden Eyes, and History of the Thirteen. The collection covers Parisian society, provincial life, military affairs, and rural France. Balzac aimed to catalog the entire social structure of his time, and while some works are more polished than others, the sheer ambition and interconnected scope of the project remains unmatched in French literature.