The Celibates

Three novels of people who never marry - a priest, a spinster, a bachelor - and what happens to a life that is never claimed. Balzac grouped them himself and they are among the most unsparing things in the Human Comedy. This edition carries Katharine Prescott Wormeley's translation and a gallery of 59 plates bound with the text, including paintings by Honoré Daumier, Paul Gavarni and Joseph-François Swebach.