Cousin Bette is one of the best loved and most admired of Honore de Balzac's novels, written when his powers were at their height and marking the culmination of his extraordinary chronicle, La Comedie Humaine.
A tale of seductive women and philandering men, of passionate affairs and spiralling debts, Cousin Bette paints a vivid portrait of Paris in the 1830s and '40s. It's a city full of temptations, in which money is king, morals are loose and the appeals of the virtuous are usually in vain. In the midst of it all sits a poor relation, Cousin Bette, like a spider in her web. Fuelled by bitterness and jealousy, she is determined to weave destruction into the lives of her extended family, the socially superior Hulots.
With her friend and accomplice, the beautiful Madame Marneffe, Bette sets out to manipulate events so that men are brought to their knees and their wives to despair, and she attains the power and prestige she seeks.
Cousin Bette was written in less than a year, in serial instalments, often only completed just before the deadline. Within its pages, Balzac conjures a kaleidoscope of characters from all walks of life, chronicles the rise of a grasping bourgeoisie and tells a gripping tale of jealousy, passion and treachery.
Honore de Balzac remains one of France's greatest writers. The author of over ninety novels and stories, his great work is the epic series of interlocking novels, La Comedie Humaine, designed to portray the radical changes France experienced after the Revolution and Empire. Balzac died three years after completing Cousin Bette, in 1850.
The Reader is Alex Jennings, who is currently appearing in The Collaborators as Mikhail Bulgakov at the National Theatre and will shortly be seen in Silk on BBC One. His many readings for Radio 4 include Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and Speaking for Themselves, the letters of Clementine and Winston Churchill.
Cousin Bette is translated by Marion Ayton Crawford and the abridger was Sally Marmion.
The producer is Di Speirs. Show less