Who wrote the series of novels and novellas "The Human Comedy"?

"The Human Comedy" (French "La Comédie humaine") is a vast series of some 90 novels and novellas by Honoré de Balzac, a French novelist and playwright (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850). The “definitive edition" was published in 24 volumes, between 1869 and 1876.

Individuals in Balzac’s stories are continually affected by the pressures of material difficulties and social ambitions. His most impressive characters are monomaniacs who are both victim and embodiment of some ruling passion: avarice, as in the main character of "Gobseck" (1835); the miserly father obsessed with riches in "Eugénie Grandet" (1833); excessive paternal affection in "Le Père Goriot" (1835; "Father Goriot"); feminine vindictiveness, in "La Cousine Bette" (1846; "Cousin Bette"); or the frustrated ambition of the resourceful criminal mastermind Vautrin in "Illusions perdues" (1837–43; "Lost Illusions") and "Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes" (1839–47; "A Harlot High and Low"). Once such an obsession has gained a hold, it blinds the person to all other considerations.

Honoré de Balzac has been hugely influential, he himself said “What Napoleon achieved by the sword, I shall achieve by the pen”. He admired Napoleon greatly, and when he worked, a statuette of the Emperor was in front of him. In the series there are 2000 characters and he kept track of them by making dolls as aide-memoires.