Cousin Betty

Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. It was part of his long novel collection titled La Comédie Humaine.

Set in mid-19th century Paris, it tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family. Betty works with Valérie Marneffe, an unhappily married young lady, to seduce and torment a series of men.

As we follow her schemes to bring ruin upon the more privileged members of her family, we see a society in transition. The stability and idealism of the old order give way to a new bourgeois world in which virtue is strangled in the struggle for power and money.

In this novel, Balzac searchingly probes the psychology and motivations of his characters: his work influenced the development of literary realism, as practised by writers such as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Proust, and Henry James.

Cousin Betty is considered Balzac's last great work. His trademark use of realist detail combines with a panorama of characters returning from earlier novels.

A number of film versions of the story have been produced.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories, La Comédie humaine. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics.

Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience.

Start din 14-dagers gratis prøveperiode

  • Full tilgang til hundretusener av lydbøker og e-bøker i vårt bibliotek
  • Opprett opptil 4 profiler – inkludert barneprofiler
  • Les og lytt offline
  • Abonnement fra 149 kr per måned
Prøv gratis nå

Si opp abonnementet når som helst

Cousin Betty

Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. It was part of his long novel collection titled La Comédie Humaine.

Set in mid-19th century Paris, it tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman who plots the destruction of her extended family. Betty works with Valérie Marneffe, an unhappily married young lady, to seduce and torment a series of men.

As we follow her schemes to bring ruin upon the more privileged members of her family, we see a society in transition. The stability and idealism of the old order give way to a new bourgeois world in which virtue is strangled in the struggle for power and money.

In this novel, Balzac searchingly probes the psychology and motivations of his characters: his work influenced the development of literary realism, as practised by writers such as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Proust, and Henry James.

Cousin Betty is considered Balzac's last great work. His trademark use of realist detail combines with a panorama of characters returning from earlier novels.

A number of film versions of the story have been produced.

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories, La Comédie humaine. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics.

Before and during his career as a writer, he attempted to be a publisher, printer, businessman, critic, and politician; he failed in all of these efforts. La Comédie humaine reflects his real-life difficulties, and includes scenes from his own experience.


Oppleser:

Varighet:

  • 430 sider

Språk:

engelsk


  1. La Peau de chagrin

    Honoré de Balzac

    book
  2. La obra maestra desconocida

    Honoré de Balzac

    audiobookbook
  3. The Human Comedy : The Complete Masterpiece of 19th Century French Literature by Honoré de Balzac

    Honoré de Balzac

    book
  4. La Maison du Chat Qui Pelote : série la Comédie Humaine

    Honoré de Balzac

    audiobook
  5. Ferragus : Chef des Dévorants

    Honoré de Balzac

    audiobook
  6. Die größten Heldinnen der Literatur (50 Romane in einem Band)

    Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Leo Tolstoi, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, Sinclair Lewis, Hedwig Dohm, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett, Daniel Defoe, Anne Brontë, L.M. Montgomery, Victor Hugo, Wilhelmine von Hillern, Adalbert Stifter, Luise Ahlborn, George Eliot, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Stefan Zweig, D. H. Lawrence, Henry James, Margaret Mitchell, Edith Wharton, Miles Franklin, Willa Cather, Elizabeth Gaskell, Nikolai Semjonowitsch Leskow, Theodore Dreiser, Elizabeth von Arnim, Colette, Honoré de Balzac, William Makepeace Thackeray, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Theodor Fontane, Ada Langworthy Collier, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Johanna Schopenhauer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens

    book
  7. Die Rebellinnen der Literatur - Klassiker, die man kennen muss

    George Sand, D. H. Lawrence, Leo Tolstoi, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Hardy, Sinclair Lewis, Hedwig Dohm, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Daniel Defoe, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, L.M. Montgomery, Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Stefan Zweig, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth von Arnim, Colette, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Theodor Fontane, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Johanna Schopenhauer, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

    book
  8. Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu

    Honoré de Balzac

    book
  9. Widerspenstige Frauen in der Literaturgeschichte : Juliette, Tante Lisbeth, Nana, Medea, Sturmhöhe, Madame Bovary, Die Rumplhanni, Anna Karenina

    Gustave Flaubert, Dora Duncker, Charles-Louis Philippe, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Restif de, Heinrich Vollrat Schumacher, Euripides, Honoré de Balzac, Heinrich Mann, Lena Christ, William Makepeace Thackeray, Emily Brontë, John Cleland, Marquis De Sade, Lew Tolstoi

    book
  10. Die großen Klassiker der französischen Literatur: Über 40 Titel in einem Band

    Stendhal, Jules Verne, Gustave Flaubert, Honoré de Balzac, Anatole France, Victor Hugo, Alphonse Daudet, Guy De Maupassant, Edmond Rostand, Alexandre Dumas, François Rabelais, George Sand, Marcel Proust, Alfred de Musset, Charles Baudelaire, Denis Diderot, Pierre Corneille, Voltaire, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Jean Giraudoux, Marquis De Sade, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile Zola, Pierre de Beaumarchais, Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos, Marie-Madeleine La Fayette, Antoine-François Prévost, François René Chateaubriand, Guillaume de Lorris, Moliere, Jean Baptiste Racine

    book
  11. The Human Comedy (Complete Edition) : Enriched edition. A Literary Masterpiece Capturing French Society in the 19th Century

    Honoré de Balzac

    book
  12. Die Meistererzählungen der Weltliteratur : Weiße Nächte; Der Mantel; Bartleby, der Schreiber; Vater Goriot; Der Horla; Die Kreutzersonate; Der Doppelgänger; Die Dame mit dem Hündchen

    Fjodor M Dostojewski, Franz Kafka, Nikolai Gogol, Guy De Maupassant, Rainer Maria Rilke, Stefan Zweig, Alexander Sergejewitsch Puschkin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, O.Henry, E T A Hoffmann, Oscar Wilde, Anton Tschechow, Mark Twain, Heinrich von Kleist, Jean Paul, Iwan Sergejewitsch Turgenew, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Eduard Mörike, Joseph Roth, Lew Tolstoi, Gustave Flaubert, Arthur Schnitzler, George Sand, Honoré de Balzac, Achim von Arnim, Joseph Conrad, Jakob Wassermann, Alexei Konstantinowitsch Tolstoi, Charles Baudelaire, Prosper Mérimée, Washington Irving, Theodor Storm, Rudyard Kipling, Stendhal, Ambrose Bierce, Jack London, André Gide

    book