MYSTERIOUS: Honore de balzac - What They Never Told You

Someone bought this photo at a yard sale: it could now be worth $1 million!

The extraordinary provenance of Edward Steichen's image tells us something profound about how photography gets valued

Digital Camera World · Apr 3

Want to understand Honoré de Balzac? Try Dungeons & Dragons instead of literary theory

Most people think originality comes from endless freedom. The role playing game Dungeons Dragons suggests the opposite. It gives players a small number of races, classes and backgrounds and somehow produces characters that feel endlessly distinct. A half-elf paladin might be an immediately recognisable type, yet no two half-elf paladins…

The Conversation · Feb 25

Twenty experts on the book that got them through their 20s – part one

Your 20s can be an intense decade. In the words of Taylor Swift, those years are “happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time”. Many of us turn to literature to guide us through the highs and the lows of this formative era. We asked 20 of our academic…

The Conversation · Dec 1, 2025

How to build a cinematic universe: the secret to Marvel’s enormous success among a history of failures

Since Iron Man hit the big screen in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has made more than US$30 billion, from films to series, to merchandise and comics. As scholars and the press have noted, key to its success is the use of a highly gripping and elaborate “shared universe”.

The Conversation · Apr 8, 2025

How 19th-century French novelist Balzac mastered the multiverse long before Marvel

The multiverse has become an essential part of pop culture. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) brought this shared universe style of storytelling to global prominence with Iron Man (2008), where a post-credit scene hinted at a larger interconnected universe.

The Conversation · Oct 9, 2024

‘Very rich, very famous, and very powerful’: How Bernard Tapie became France’s first tycoon – and wound up in prison

Benard Tapie is the subject of a new Netflix series, ‘Class Act’, which dramatizes his life. Actor Laurent Lafitte, director Tristan Seguéla, and screenwriter Olivier Demangel speak to Clémence Michallon

The Independent UK · Sep 18, 2023

"Lost Illusions" and allure of fake news

This engrossing adaptation of Balzac's novel shows that threats to journalistic integrity have always been around

Salon · Jun 10, 2022

Hugo, Flaubert: 19th century French writers' letters to be auctioned in Paris

Letters from great French writers of the 19th century such as Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine, will be auctioned tomorrow, Thursday 9 June.

Radio France Internationale · Jun 8, 2022

Lost Illusions review – Balzac adaptation is period-drama perfection

Benjamin Voisin and Cécile de France star in a superb costume coming-of-age story for the Netflix generation

The Guardian - UK · May 10, 2022