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British Balzac criticism presents us with a challenge: seemingly marginal, it gives us a mirror, perhaps the mirror of his creation. This article is presented in two parts and aims to give an overview of British Balzac criticism from its beginnings to the present day. The first part takes as its starting point the 1830 Revolution, which precedes the publication of any work or review of Balzac in England, but which is often used to explain the “convulsive” nature of Balzac and his peers. We review the high points of the British reception and hence conception of his work; twin functions from the simultaneous publication and criticism of Ferragus in Paris and London in 1834, and which are subsequently reinforced by many key moments, the biggest being perhaps the Anglo-French constellation around a picture by the painter Egg, a friend of Dickens, to whom Taine would contrast Balzac in order to launch his vision of an impartial and artistic literature which would make light of moral exemplarity in order to hallucinate the true. This kind of literature would above all be embodied, doubtless unbeknown to most British readers, by Shakespeare, to whom Balzac would be compared by Lesley Stephen, and with whom James, Wilde, and Symons would hail a Balzac who is both powerful and visionary.