Cousin Bette
by Honoré de Balzac · La Cousine Bette
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1846
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- French
- Length
- Long · 480 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendCousin Bette, translated by Marion Ayton CrawfordPenguin Classics, 1965Long the standard English version; Oxford World's Classics also has a good translation by Sylvia Raphael.
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Lisbeth Fischer, a poor and plain spinster kept as a dependent by her rich relations the Hulots, nurses a lifelong envy of her beautiful cousin Adeline. When Adeline's daughter takes away the young Polish sculptor Bette has been supporting, Bette allies with the courtesan Valérie Marneffe to ruin the family. Baron Hulot, Adeline's husband, is a compulsive womaniser whose affairs and embezzlements do most of the work for her. Set in Paris under Louis-Philippe, it is one of the last and darkest novels of Balzac's Human Comedy.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Cousin Bette are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
