num_pages: 496
description: 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 1840's Paris. The culmination of the Comedie humaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of his greatest triumphs as a novelist.
language: English
title: Cousin Bette
titlecomplete: Cousin Bette
characters: Bette, Valérie Marneffe, Baron Hector Hulot, Wenceslas Steinbock
genres: Historical Fiction, French Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Classic Literature, Classics, Fiction, 19th Century, France
ratings_count: 9743
places: Paris
series: La Comédie Humaine, Poor Relations, Études de mœurs : Scènes de la vie parisienne
publisher: Modern Library