Raphaël de Valentin, a penniless young man in Paris, is close to despair when an antique dealer offers him a strange piece of shagreen leather. It will grant any wish, but with each wish it shrinks, and with it his own life. The novel mixes fantasy with a realistic portrait of Parisian society, gambling, love and appetite. It asks how a person should spend a limited life, and it marked Balzac's first great success.