Old GoriotBy: Honor De Balzac Series: Everyman's Library Classics Series Honor de Balzacs great theme was money, and in his best loved novel, Old Goriot, he explored its uses and abuses with the particularity of a poet. A shabby Parisian boarding house in 1819 is the setting where his colorful characters collide. These include an elderly retired merchant called Old Goriot, who has bankrupted himself for the sake of his two rapacious, social climbing daughters,