eBalzac. Pour une édition génétique et hypertextuelle de l’œuvre de Balzac

This paper traces the results of a research project in digital humanities, eBalzac. This project aim to place Honoré de Balzac’s entire oeuvre in conversation with a vast corpus of contemporary writings that may have inspired the former, in the literary or scientific field (medicine, physiology, natural sciences). The objective is to enable more advanced research and hypertextual comparisons in order to detect correspondences, borrowings, quotations, repetitions, and possibly plagiarism; and thus create a digital cartography of the Balzacian universe based on the traces other authors left on his work. The first achievement of the project is the site ebalzac.com, which offers a highly corrected edition of all The Human Comedy and the possibility of making genetic comparisons on the multiple versions corrected by the author, whose contributions are detailed here.