The Wild Ass's Skin

Honoré de Balzac · 1831 CE · Novel · French · Romantic

Raphaël de Valentin, cleaned out at the gaming tables and walking toward the Seine to drown, is stopped in an antique shop by an old dealer who offers him a scrap of shagreen inscribed in an eastern script: it grants any wish its owner makes, and shrinks a little with each one. He takes it, and comes into a fortune, a mistress and the habit of laying a tape measure against the skin every morning. The opening work of the philosophical studies of the Comédie humaine, and the book that made Balzac's name in Paris.

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Lineage

• influenced by ↑ Faust, Part One
  Goethe · 1808 CE · Play

Attributes

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