Honore de Balzac, Best Novels by Honoré de Balzac

Her name was Ewelina (Eveline) Hańska, a Polish countess married to a much older man, and a fan of the writer’s works. It’s not clear whether the letter writer ever saw this message, but she would write to Balzac again. He regrets that the means of replying has been withheld, and though his wishes are not of a nature that permits them to be published here, he hopes that at least his silence will be understood. has received the letter that was sent to him on 28 February. The April 4th issue that year ran his cryptic message: Moved, intrigued, and impressed-and as Robb points out, very sensitive about any charges of irreligiosity-Balzac took out a classified ad in a newspaper, the Gazette de France, hoping it might reach his anonymous critic.

The letter was signed simply “L’Étrangère” (“The Stranger” or possibly “The Foreigner”). The letter itself has been lost to time, “which is all the more unfortunate,” writes Balzac biographer Graham Robb, “since it is easily the most important letter Balzac ever received.” But from Balzac’s eventual reply, it can be deduced that the letter derided the “cynicism and atheism” of his latest novel, and its treatment of women, who “were portrayed as evil monsters.” The letter “urged him to return to the more elevated ideas of Scènes de la Vie Privée with their angelic victims.” He opened it, of course, and inside was a critique of his most recent novel, La Peau de chagrin. The postmark read Odessa-then a far distant city in the Ukraine-but there was no return address. In March of 1832, Honoré de Balzac received a letter at his Paris address.

Honore de Balzac, Best Novels by Honoré de Balzac