{"product_id":"2026200011025-secondhand-cousin-bette","title":"Cousin Bette","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCousin Bette is a masterwork of 19th-century French realism, written by Honoré de Balzac and first published in 1846 as part of his monumental La Comédie Humaine series. The novel chronicles the slow, calculated revenge of Lisbeth Fischer — known as Cousin Bette — a bitter, plain spinster who harbours a deep and festering jealousy toward her glamorous Hulot relations in Paris. With cold precision, Bette engineers the moral and financial ruin of those around her, manipulating lovers, artists, and aristocrats alike in a web of intrigue that feels as urgent today as it did in Balzac's time. Dark, psychologically rich, and unflinching in its portrayal of vanity, desire, and social hypocrisy, the novel stands as one of the most compelling character studies in all of Western literature. Balzac illustrates with devastating clarity how unchecked envy and wounded pride can corrode not only the individual, but an entire social world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48956129870043,"sku":"2026200011025-SECONDHAND","price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/f2d401ce-77de-413d-b2b8-05f3fad7aa3c.png?v=1783498127","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200011025-secondhand-cousin-bette","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}