Father Goriot is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac
(1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence
La Comédie humaine. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three
characters: the elderly doting Goriot, a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named
Vautrin and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac.
The novel takes place during the Bourbon Restoration, which brought profound
ch ...