Balzac

Honore de Balzac (20 May 1799 - 18 August 1850) was a French Novelist and Playwright during the period after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. His work was mostly of satirical nature, and he introduced a new form of writing, where his characters would appear in many different novels, switching between background characters and protagonists, as if their stories were all intertwined and making his novels more realistic. This can be seen in his series of almost 100 works, titled La Comedie Humaine.
Honore was a legendary work-a-holic, oftentimes writing for up to fifteen hours a day, and staying awake by drinking massive amounts of black coffee. His ambition was unending, and he constantly strove to advance farther in life, believing that he could enter politics and continue his writing at the same time. This lifestyle would ultimately prove too strenuous for him, and his health failed him early.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balzac