Guy Riegert Books

This novel is a tale of human bondage. The author's realistic and explicit descriptions of the fall of Emma Bovary into adultery, debt and eventual death at her own hand, shocked the establishment at the time it was published.

This is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. It is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for money. The detailed descriptions of both affluence and squalor in the Paris of 1819 are an integral part of the drama played out by a wide range of characters, including the sinister but fascinating Vautrin. Unquestionably one of Balzac's finest novels, Pére Goriot still has the power to move the modern reader.