Note: Generally considered the creator of realism in literature and one of the greatest fiction writers of all time. Schooled in Paris, Balzac worked for a lawyer at age 16, writing plays and novels at night. After the failure of his fiction, he attempted to start a business, which also failed. In 1929 he finally published his first novel, and spent the bulk of his life in Paris. As with many SF writers, Balzac had a plan to unify his novels into a unified series, referring to it as The Human Comedy, which eventually encompassed some 90 novels and novellas.