The charming collection of short stories “Naughty Stories” is a kind of “answer” of the great realist writer to the romantics with their admiration for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and emphatically tragic plots. Playing on the field of romanticism, Balzac opens to the reader a completely different world of the distant European past - a cheerful one , juicy, full-blooded, sensual and life-loving. Editions of “Naughty Stories” published in Soviet times included only selected works. The same book includes all the stories in the cycle, including those that were not published during Honore de Balzac’s lifetime.