About “La Mort de Balzac”
La Mort de Balzac by Octave Mirbeau is a collection of three sub-chapters that were originally meant to be part of his work La 628-E8, scheduled for publication in November 1907. They were removed at the last moment at the request of the 80-year-old daughter of Madame Hanska, the Countess of Mniszech. The text was first published in 1989 by Pierre Michel and Jean-François Nivet under the Editions du Lerot, and later in 1999 by Editions du Félin. It was published at the expense of an admirer and initially limited to 250 copies. The three sub-chapters had previously appeared in 1918 under the title Balzac. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)