num_pages: 444
description: Cousine Bette (1847) was one of the last and greatest of Balzac’s novels. By the time he wrote it he had already created in his monumental novel-series, The Human Comedy, a whole world of people on whom to draw for characters; he had also acquired a mastery of compelling narrative. Cousin Bette is the story of the Hulot family: risen to eminence under Napoleon I, their aristocratic values leave them bewildered and vulnerable in the money-ridden bourgeois Paris of the 1840s. It is also the story of Bette herself, the poor relation whose patient malice finally leads to their destruction.(Source: back cover)
language: English
title: Cousin Bette
titlecomplete: Cousin Bette
characters: Valérie Marneffe, Baron Hector Hulot, Wenceslas Steinbock, Bette
genres: Fiction, 19th Century, French Literature, Classics, France, Classic Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 9744
places: Paris
series: La Comédie Humaine, Études de mœurs : Scènes de la vie parisienne, Poor Relations
publisher: Penguin Group Ltd