Cousin Bette
By (author): "Kathleen Raine, Francine Prose, Honoré de Balzac"
Publish Date:
1846
ISBN0375759077
ISBN139780375759079
AsinCousin Bette
CharactersBette, Valérie Marneffe, Baron Hector Hulot, Wenceslas Steinbock
Original titleLa cousine Bette
SeriesLa Comédie Humaine #56, Poor Relations, Études de mœurs : Scènes de la vie parisienne ,
Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice. Cousin Bette is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping, bourgeois society of 1840s Paris. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of his greatest triumphs as a novelist.
