Lisbeth Fisher, a single woman from the French countryside, is called to live in Paris with her cousin Adeline, who is married to Baron Hulot, an unfaithful, libertine old beau. Bette is as mean, sour and curt as her cousin is rich, gentle and flamboyant. Driven by envy and jealousy, she is determined to bring misfortune to her cousin and her daughter Hortense, slowly distilling her poison and weaving her web. La Cousine Bette is the tale of a concealed and implacable revenge born of thwarted passions and accumulated frustrations.

Published as a serial novel between 1846 and 1847, Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) himself prophesied the future of this "great work" in which, behind the family drama orchestrated by a ruthless puppeteer, a veritable social and moral tale is played out. Balzac, the undisputed master of the 19th-century French novel, presents us with a world corrupted by human baseness and the rule of money. The book marks a turning point in Balzac's work, in which a disillusioned romanticism is conveyed, and behind which we perceive great contempt for his era­–an era that sees the triumph of the bourgeoisie, the loss of noble values and the victory of vice over virtue. A captivating and terrifying classic of French literature, must-read novel, written like a realistic thriller.