Honore de Balzac 
Droll Stories – Complete 

Droll Stories, collection of short stories by Honore de Balzac, published in three sets of 10 stories each, in 1832, 1833, and 1837, as Contes drolatiques. Rabelaisian in theme, the stories are written with great vitality in a pastiche of 16th-century language. The tales are fully as lively as the author’s masterful Comedie humaine series, but they stand apart for their good-humoured licentiousness and historical wordplay.