Cousin Bette
A gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexual passion and treachery, Honore de Balzacs Cousin Bette is translated from the French with an introduction by Marion Ayton Crawford in Penguin Classics.
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. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping, bourgeois society of 1840s Paris, Cousin Bette is one of Balzacs greatest triumphs as a novelist.
Author:
HONORE DE BALZAC
Cover:
Paperback
Language:
ENG
Number of pages:
464
Publisher:
Penguin Classics
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