Father Goriot
by Honoré de Balzac 1799–1850
The book, and the century it came out of.
Translated by Ellen Marriage
In a shabby Paris boarding house an old vermicelli merchant sells the last of his silver to keep two daughters in the gowns their marriages require, while upstairs a law student learns the city’s actual curriculum. Balzac compresses the whole Human Comedy into one street, and Rastignac’s challenge from the cemetery closes it. Paintings of gas-lit streets, candlelit garrets and glittering salons; Gilded Library ornament of boarding-house key, mantel clock and tallow. Illustrated with 55 full-page plates — paintings by Chalon, Robert and Leprince among them.
Mme. Vauquer (nee de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the past forty years has kept a lodging-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the district that lies between the Latin Quarter and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel.
Father Goriot, by Honoré de Balzac, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- The Gilded Library
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 272 pages
- Reading time
- about 5 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Translation
- Ellen Marriage
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501009790
55 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
This book in culture: 5 versions
Most people meet a book like this one on a screen first. Here is what was made of it — and none of these is the book.
The whole afterlife of Father Goriot — screen, stage and beyond →
- 1915 Père Goriot Travers Vale short film
- 1921 Father Goriot Jacques de Baroncelli
- 1926 Paris at Midnight E. Mason Hopper
- 1945 Father Goriot Robert Vernay
- 2004 Old Goriot Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe TV film
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Father Goriot, first published 1835, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the The Gilded Library shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501009790, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Father Goriot?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Honoré de Balzac's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 272 pages, which is roughly about 5 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
