In 1830 Honoré de Balzac had only begun to achieve recognition as a writer.
Although his parents had persuaded him to make his profession the law, he announced in 1819 that he wanted to become an author.
His mother was distraught, but she and his father agreed to give him a small income, on the condition that he dedicate himself to writing, and deliver to them half of his gross income from any published work.
After moving into a tiny room near the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris, Balzac wrote for one year, without success.
Frustrated, he moved back to his family in the suburb of Villeparisis and borrowed money from his parents to pursue his literary ambitions further.
He spent the next several years writing simple potboiler novels, which he published under a variety of pseudonyms.
He shared some of his income from these with his parents, but by 1828 he still owed them 50,000 francs.

He published for the first time under his own name in 1829.
Les Chouans, a novel about royalist forces in Brittany, did not succeed commercially, but it made Balzac known in literary circles.
He achieved a major success later the same year when he published La Physiologie du mariage, a treatise on the institution of marriage.
Bolstered by its popularity, he added to his fame by publishing a variety of short stories and essays in the magazines Revue de Paris, La Caricature, and La Mode.
He thus made connections in the publishing industry that later helped him to obtain reviews of his novels.

At the time, French literary appetites for fantastic stories had been whetted by the 1829 translation of German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann's collection Fantastic Tales; the gothic fiction of England's Ann Radcliffe; and French author Jules Janin's 1829 novel L'Âne Mort et la Femme Guillotinée (The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman).
Although he planned a novel in the same tradition, Balzac disliked the term "fantastic", referring to it once as "the vulgar program of a genre in its first flush of newness, to be sure, but already too much worn by the mere abuse of the word".

The politics and culture of France, meanwhile, were in upheaval.
After reigning for six controversial years, King Charles X was forced to abdicate during the July Revolution of 1830.
He was replaced by Louis-Philippe, who named himself "King of the French" (rather than the usual "King of France") in an attempt to distance himself from the Ancien Régime.
The July Monarchy brought an entrenchment of bourgeois attitudes, in which Balzac saw disorganization and weak leadership.
In 1830 Honoré de Balzac had only begun to achieve recognition as a writer. Although his parents had persuaded him to make his profession the law, he announced in 1819 that he wanted to become an author. His mother was distraught, but she and his father agreed to give him a small income, on the condition that he dedicate himself to writing, and deliver to them half of his gross income from any published work. After moving into a tiny room near the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris, Balzac wrote for one year, without success. Frustrated, he moved back to his family in the suburb of Villeparisis and borrowed money from his parents to pursue his literary ambitions further. He spent the next several years writing simple potboiler novels, which he published under a variety of pseudonyms. He shared some of his income from these with his parents, but by 1828 he still owed them 50,000 francs.
He published for the first time under his own name in 1829. Les Chouans, a novel about royalist forces in Brittany, did not succeed commercially, but it made Balzac known in literary circles. He achieved a major success later the same year when he published La Physiologie du mariage, a treatise on the institution of marriage. Bolstered by its popularity, he added to his fame by publishing a variety of short stories and essays in the magazines Revue de Paris, La Caricature, and La Mode. He thus made connections in the publishing industry that later helped him to obtain reviews of his novels.
At the time, French literary appetites for fantastic stories had been whetted by the 1829 translation of German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann's collection Fantastic Tales; the gothic fiction of England's Ann Radcliffe; and French author Jules Janin's 1829 novel L'Âne Mort et la Femme Guillotinée (The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman). Although he planned a novel in the same tradition, Balzac disliked the term "fantastic", referring to it once as "the vulgar program of a genre in its first flush of newness, to be sure, but already too much worn by the mere abuse of the word".
The politics and culture of France, meanwhile, were in upheaval. After reigning for six controversial years, King Charles X was forced to abdicate during the July Revolution of 1830. He was replaced by Louis-Philippe, who named himself "King of the French" (rather than the usual "King of France") in an attempt to distance himself from the Ancien Régime. The July Monarchy brought an entrenchment of bourgeois attitudes, in which Balzac saw disorganization and weak leadership.
La Peau de chagrin