Balzac`s cycle of novels entitled LOST ILLUSIONS (ILLUSIONS PERDUES) was published between 1837 and 1843, and chronicles the life of Lucien de Rubempri and his rise from a small-town boy to a famous French poet in Paris, and then his fall as he returns, failed and suicidal, to his home town--only to be rescued from despair by a mysterious benefactor.
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