Cousin Bette

  • Author Honoré de Balzac
  • Narrator Johanna Ward
  • Publisher Blackstone Publishing
  • Run Time 16 hours and 26 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Classic fiction.
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What to expect

Bette, a poor relation of the beautiful Adeline, nurses a terrible grudge against her cousin's family, on whom she depends. That family is slowly being ruined by the uncontrollable sexual appetites of Adeline's husband, Baron Hulot—and it is this weakness that will give the cunning Cousin Bette an opportunity to exact her vengeance.

A profound examination of obsessive passion, this masterpiece exemplifies what Henry James described as Balzac's "huge, all-compassing, all-desiring, all-devouring love of reality." One of Balzac's "scenes of Parisian life," Cousin Bette offers a hypnotic vision of the infinitely varied city during the bright, vital, and scandalous era of King Louis-Philippe. The courtesans, swindlers, bankers, artists, murderers, detectives, and saints that pass before us blaze with an unsurpassed vividness and energy.

Critics Review

  • “Beyond all question one of the very greatest of [Balzac’s] works.”

    George Saintsbury

  • “The masterpiece of his premature old age.”

    Graham Robb, Balzac biographer

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