Honoré de Balzac, born on May 20, 1799, in Tours, France, set himself one of the most ambitious goals in literary history: he wanted to write about every type of person in French society. Rich and poor, young and old, honest and criminal -- Balzac wanted to capture them all. He called his massive project La Comédie humaine, which means "The Human Comedy." Over his lifetime, Balzac wrote nearly 100 novels and short stories. Many of them are connected -- the same characters appear in different books. A young man who is a minor figure in one story might become the protagonist of another. This technique, which was revolutionary at the time, allowed readers to feel like they were exploring a real world. Balzac was famous for his intense work habits. He wrote for up to eighteen hours a day, fueled by enormous amounts of coffee. Some historians estimate he drank as many as fifty cups a day. His writing was incredibly detailed -- he described rooms, clothing, food, and streets so precisely that readers felt they could walk through his scenes. Balzac is considered one of the founders of a style called realism. Before him, most novels featured idealized heroes and fairy-tale plots. Balzac insisted on showing life as it actually was, including its ugliness and unfairness. His influence shaped writers from Charles Dickens to Fyodor Dostoevsky.