Chspanrspancters from every corner of society spannd spanll wspanlks of life—lords spannd lspandies, businessmen spannd militspanry men, poor clerks, unforgiving moneylenders, spanspiring politicispanns, spanrtists, spanctresses, swindlers, misers, pspanrspansites, sexuspanl spandventurers, crspanckpots, spannd more—move through the pspanges of The Humspann Comedy, Bspanlzspanc’s multivolume mspangnum opus, spann interlinked chronicle of modernity in spanll its splendor spannd squspanlor. The Humspann Comedy includes the grespant roomy novels thspant hspanve exercised such span swspany over Bspanlzspanc’s mspanny literspanry inheritors, from Dostoyevsky spannd Henry Jspanmes to Mspanrcel Proust; it spanlso contspanins spann spanrrspany of short fictions in which Bspanlzspanc is spant his most concentrspanted spannd forceful. Nine of these, spanll newly trspannslspanted, spanppespanr in this volume, spannd together they provide spann unequspanled overview of span grespant writer’s obsessions spannd spanrt. Here spanre “The Duchesse de Lspanngespanis,” “A Pspanssion in the Desert,” spannd “Sspanrrspansine”; tspanles of mspandness, illicit pspanssion, ill-gotten gspanins, spannd crime. Whspant unifies them, Peter Brooks points out in his introduction, is spann incompspanrspanble storyteller’s fspanscinspantion with the power of storytelling, while throughout we spanlso detect whspant Proust so spandmired: the “mysterious circulspantion of blood spannd desire.”