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.
