Cousin Betty

LibriVox recording of Cousin Betty by Honoré de Balzac. (Translated by Ellen Marriage.) Read in English by Bruce Pirie. Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846 as part of his long novel series titled La Comédie Humaine, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. Set in mid-19th-century France, it tells the story of a woman who resents her position as a "poor relation." 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