page_title: La Peau de chagrin
section_title: L'Étrangère
hierarchical_section_title: La Peau de chagrin / Reception and legacy / L'Étrangère
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Ewelina Hańska by Holz von Sowgen, 1825, miniature on ivory. Maison de Balzac. Inv.&#160;: 34. Français&#160;: Portrait de madame Hanska par Holz von Sowgen, vers 1825. Miniature sur ivoire. Maison de Balzac. Inv.&#160;: 34. Polski: Portret Eweliny Hańskiej autorstwa Holza von Sowgena, 1825, miniatura na kości słoniowej; Maison de Balzac. Inv.&#160;: 34.
context_page_description: La Peau de chagrin is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac. Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.
  Before the book was completed, Balzac created excitement about it by publishing a series of articles and story fragments in several Parisian journals. Although he was five months late in delivering the manuscript, he succeeded in generating sufficient interest that the novel sold out instantly upon its publication. A second edition, which included a series of twelve other "philosophical tales", was released one month later.
  Although the novel uses fantastic elements, its main focus is a realistic portrayal of the excesses of bourgeois materialism. Balzac's renowned attention to detail is used to describe a gambling house, an antique shop, a royal banquet, and other locales.
context_section_description: The popularity of the novel extended to Ukraine, where a baroness named Ewelina Hańska read about Balzac's novels in newspapers she received from Paris. Intrigued, she ordered copies of his work, and she read them with her cousins and friends around Volhynia. They were impressed by the understanding he showed toward women in La Physiologie du mariage, but felt that La Peau de chagrin portrayed them in a cruel and unforgiving light. Hańska wrote a letter to Balzac, signed it as L'Étrangère ("The Stranger"), and mailed it from Odessa on 28 February 1832.
  With no return address, Balzac was left to reply in the Gazette de France, with the hope that she would see the notice. She did not, but wrote again in November: "Your soul embraces centuries, monsieur; its philosophical concepts appear to be the fruit of long study matured by time; yet I am told you are still young. I would like to know you, but feel I have no need to do so. I know you through my own spiritual instinct; I picture you in my own way, and feel that if I were to actually set eyes upon you, I should instantly exclaim, 'That is he!'"
  Eventually she revealed herself to him, and they began a correspondence that lasted for fifteen years. Although she remained faithful to her husband Wacław, Mme. Hańska and Balzac enjoyed an emotional intimacy through their letters. When the baron died in 1841, the French author began to pursue the relationship outside the written page. They wed in the town of Berdychiv on 14 March 1850, five months before he died.
caption: Polish baroness Ewelina Hańska wrote to Balzac after reading La Peau de chagrin, signing her letter L'Étrangère ("The Stranger", "The Foreigner"). They married in 1850.
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