William Hobart Royce (/rɔɪs/; 20 March 1878 – 28 January 1963)[1] was an American writer and bookseller who was an expert on Honoré de Balzac.
In 1935, Royce was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor and was made an honorary citizen of Issoudun, where Balzac's La Rabouilleuse was set.
According to Harzof, Royce's "main virtue was that he could be implicitly trusted with bags of uncounted gold".
In Wells, Royce met someone with a fascination with Balzac as great as his own and the shop became a centre for the sale of all types of Balzaciana.
[1] Royce's papers, including those of the Balzac Society of America, are in the library of Syracuse University.