A book on the experience of reading Honoré de Balzac's La Comédie Humaine which recounts the process of Peter Brooks's own discovery of Balzac. This volume is a personal account of coming to terms with Balzac: moving from more classical and restrained authors to the highly-coloured melodramatic novels of the Human Comedy, which give us the dynamics of a new and challenging world on the threshold of modernity. It shows readers how to read, and to love reading, Balzac, and how to engage with his vast work.