Honoré de Balzac Three Stories of Christendom

From Parisian streets overshadowed by revolutionary violence to a ferry capsized by a storm on the open water, the settings of Balzac abound with Catholic themes and symbols. According to the French master storyteller who helped establish the modern novel, questions of authority, guilt, gratitude, and humility are inescapable and rooted in the undeniable facts of our condition. In this volume Balzac takes the reader on an exploration of just such questions, with the help of a compelling cast of vividly-drawn cast of characters. A steadfast fugitive priest tries to evade capture and death in "An Episode Under the Terror," the godless physician of "The Atheist's Mass" is haunted by his past, and the cocky yet heroic boatman of "Christ In Flanders" has an encounter with Someone beyond his ken. Context for these three stories is given by various supplements, from G.K. Chesterton's reflections on the Christian influences in Balzac's work to Oscar Wilde's thoughts about the artistic merits of the Balzac corpus. As liberal arts educator Jerry Salyer notes in his introduction, what is demonstrated by this trio of stories is that one of the world's literary geniuses worked from the premise that "faith is hardwired into human existence as such."