Father Goriot

In a shabby Paris boarding house, an old vermicelli merchant sells his last silver to keep two daughters in gowns they will not thank him for, and a law student decides which way he intends to climb. Balzac worked nights on fifty cups of coffee a day and died at fifty-one; this is the novel where his Human Comedy locks together, and where Vautrin explains, at length, exactly how the world is run.