Honoré de Balzac

French novelist who wrote La Comédie Humaine — a 90+ volume interconnected series following French society from the Restoration through the July Monarchy — creating the most comprehensive fictional sociology of modern capitalism and social ambition.

Created the social novel that shows capitalism's penetration of every human relationship — money, marriage, ambition, and appearance are shown to be inseparable in bourgeois Paris — and for Girard, Balzac's characters demonstrate mimetic desire in its social form: they want what their social betters have.