The Droll Stories of Honore de Balzac Author:Honore de Balzac 1932. Balzac was originally trained as a lawyer before deciding his dream was to become a writer. He is now regarded as one of the creators of realism in literature and his huge production of novels and short stories are collected under the name La Comedie Humaine. This volume contains 30 of Balzac's tales split into three sections.