Honoré de Balzac was born on 20 May 1799 in Tours. A French novelist and playwright born in Tours, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of literary realism. He spent most of his career writing La Comédie humaine, a vast cycle of nearly a hundred novels and stories that portrays French society after the fall of Napoleon, in Paris and the provinces. Among its best-known titles are Eugénie Grandet, Père Goriot, Lost Illusions and Cousin Bette. He worked at an extraordinary pace, often through the night, fuelled by large amounts of coffee, and was repeatedly beset by debts. He married the Polish noblewoman Ewelina Hańska only a few months before his death in Paris.
Before and after
- from 1799 to 1849Sikh Empire
- 1799Construction of Hawa Mahal
- from March 1799 to December 1799Italian and Swiss expedition
- from 15 April 1799 to 11 September 1799Suvorov's Italian campaign
- 20 May 1799Birth of Honoré de Balzac
- 26 May 1799Birth of Alexander Pushkin
- from 5 June 1799 to 1 January 1804Alexander von Humboldt begins his American expedition
- 15 July 1799The Rosetta Stone is found
- from 9 November 1799 to 10 November 1799Coup of 18 Brumaire
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1792Publication of Dream of the Red Chamber
- 7 April 1837Publication of The Little Mermaid
- 21 February 1848Publication of The Communist Manifesto
- 18 September 1851Founding of The New York Times
- 1857Rise of Symbolism
- 28 December 1895The Lumiere brothers hold the first public film screening
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 18th century.