It's 1832, and 22-year-old Raphaël de Valentin's gambling has driven him to the brink of suicide. He is about to throw himself in the Seine a shopkeeper offers him something: a "skin of sorrow", which will grant all his wishes, but in doing so will shrink, as will his remaining time on earth. Known in French as 'La Peau de chagrin', the novel belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.
Honoré de Balzac, original name Honoré Balssa, (born May 20, 1799, Tours, France-died August 18, 1850, Paris), French literary artist who produced a vast number of novels and short stories collectively called La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy). He helped to establish the traditional form of the novel and is generally considered to be one of the greatest novelists of all time.