Honoré de Balzac, La Cousine Bette [Cousin Bette]

Andrew Watts (University of Birmingham)

Ed. by Tim Unwin, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.05: French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century , 1800-1900.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Nigel Harkness (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield), Jennifer Yee (University of Oxford)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1846

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

A tale of jealousy, revenge, and destructive passion, La Cousine Bette (1847) is one of the most celebrated novels in French realist fiction. In the summer of 1846, Balzac, by now aged forty-seven and in rapidly declining health, had begun work on a two-part novella, a study of familial neglect entitled Les Parents pauvres [The Poor Relations] (1847). The first volume, Le Vieux Musicien [The Old Musician] (which later became Le Cousin Pons) (1847), was already in progress when, as so often before in his career, he decided that both halves of the project merited a longer treatment, and should be …

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3112 words

Citation: Watts, Andrew. "La Cousine Bette". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4132, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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