It’s the birthday of Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), who went from being a complete literary flop on the verge of bankruptcy to one of the greatest novelists of all time still on the verge of bankruptcy. So: impressive growth, impressive consistency.

Balzac was born in Tours, France, to a mother who was more than 30 years younger than his father. His father had worked his way up from peasantry to government service under Louis XVI and Napoleon (Louis XVI is the one who lost his head), and Balzac’s mother had family money from their haberdashery business. Balzac was sent off to a wet nurse as an infant and later had a cruel governess. (I don’t know why anyone would hire a cruel governess. If anyone’s going to yell at my children, it’s going to be me, dammit.) Balzac was sent away to a grammar school that had a “punishment cell” for kids who got into trouble, as Balzac constantly did, putting the school on a par with British boarding schools and sealing Balzac’s destiny as a great writer.

Balzac’s family moved to Paris, where he finished his education, studied at the Sorbonne, and trained for the law. He hated it, quit after his apprenticeship, and began his literary efforts. His first work was Cromwell (1819), an unsuccessful tragedy in verse; he wrote novels he never finished, then short stories that were published, and then, under a pseudonym, a series of tasteless potboilers catering to the masses (you know who you are). He did, however, learn to write under pressure, and for much of his life maintained an insanely demanding writing schedule of 14 to 16  hours a day involving way, way more coffee than anyone ought to drink. All of which contributed to the trashing of his health.

After some failed business attempts—publishing, printing, and owning a typefoundry—Balzac got down to being Balzac, creating fully realized characters, founding realism in the novel, and establishing himself as “the supreme observer and chronicler of contemporary French society” (britannica.com). His 12-volume La Comédie Humaine is a collection of about 90 novels and novellas featuring more than 2,470 named characters depicting every nook and cranny of his society.

Balzac fell in love with a Polish countess, Éveline Hanska, and for years they waited for her elderly husband to die so they could marry. In 1842 the old guy kicked off, but Hanska was not thrilled with Balzac’s debt and there were other obstacles, so the couple didn’t marry until 1850, which you may recall is also the year of Balzac’s death. Balzac died several months after the wedding, killed by his really bad health. But Victor Hugo spoke at his funeral, so there’s that. And there’s this: he has been called “The Shakespeare of the Novel.”

Have a fine Monday, think twice about that second (or tenth) cup of coffee, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.