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The imaginative breadth and the intellectual depth of [this novel] make it one of the greatest of Balzac's "Etudes philosophiques'. With its central symbol of the magic piece of shagreen, it expresses the peculiarly Balzacian idea of the human will and dramatizes with startling urgency the choice between ruthless self-gratification and asceticism, between vice and virtue, between dissipation and restraint. The symbolism is powerful but not overpowering: shrewd psychology, superbly chiselled dialogue and the sheer energy of the descriptive passages - the gambling den, the orgy, the devastating finale - give [the novel] a compelling and forceful realism.-Back cover.