The Magic Skin

Complete and unabridged, with 40 full-page plates by Honoré Daumier, Eugène Delacroix and Édouard Manet. A ruined young man about to drown himself steps into a curiosity shop and is offered a piece of shagreen that grants every wish — and shrinks with each one, dragging his life in with it. Balzac wrote it at thirty-two and made his name; he worked nights on fifty cups of coffee a day and died at ...