Introduction : the prime movers
Mimetic figures of semiosis
From heteronomy to unity : Les Chouans
Tenebrous affairs and necessary explications
Self-narration and the fakery of imitation
The double representation of the history of César Birotteau
La maison Nucingen, a financial narrative
Myth and mendacity : Pierrette and Beatrice Cenci
The corset of La vieille fille
Genealogy and the unmarried in La rabouilleuse
Ursule Mirouët : genealogy and inheritance
Un prince de la bohème and Pierre Grassou, or how love makes money
Voyages of reflection, reflections on voyages
Balzac and Poe : realizing magnetism
Chemistry and composition : la recherche de l'absolu
The capital of money and the science of magnetism : Melmoth réconcilié
Love, music, and opium : medical semiotics of Massimilla Doni
The languages of sex
Composed past and historical present
Problems of closure
Conclusion : Balzac's invention of realism.