Cousin Bette (Mint Editions)

Bette Fischer, a bitter and contemptuous woman, seeks to embroil her extended family in a series of romantic scandals. With the help of Val rie Marneffe, a beautiful and willing accomplice, she plays on the weaknesses and desires of her victims in order not only to expose their vanity and egotism, but to excuse her own. Cousin Bette, arguably the final great work by master novelist Honor de Balzac, is an intensely emotional work of fiction that exposes with its realist lens the often brutal nature of human relationships.