Cousin Bette - Red Cat Classics

Cousin Bette - Red Cat Classics Book Description Cousin Bette, considered to be the last great novel written by Balzac before his death, is a classic work about revenge, passion, weakness and virtue. Cousin Bette, in the grip of jealousy towards her relatives who have a happy family life, gets alone with the beautiful and sensual Valerie, whom her flirtatious brother-in-law covets, and organizes intrigues and plans the downfall of her extended family. In the post-revolutionary French bourgeois society, where money became the only goal, Balzac, who dealt in fine detail with the inner worlds of women who used love for comfort and status and men who spent all their strength to capture women, also introduced to literature the love intrigues that continue to be repeated in today's soap opera scenarios. Cousin Bette is one of the most important elements of the 12-volume Codede of Humanity by Balzac, the creator of the realism and naturalism movements. “Although Balzac's work, Cousin Bette, is one of the first examples of the experimental novel, it contains strong observations on both human relations and the changes in French society at the beginning of the 19th century.” Emile Zola (From the Promotional Bulletin)