Cousin Pons, Classics To Go
Le Cousin Pons is one of the last of the 94 novels and short stories that make up Honoré de Balzac’s Comédie humaine. Begun in 1846 as a novella, it was envisaged as one part of a diptych, Les Parents pauvres (The Poor Relations), along with La Cousine Bette (Cousin Bette). The book was originally published as a serial in Le Constitutionnel, but during 1847 it grew into a full-length novel, with a male poor relation, Pons, as its subject, (La Cousine Bette describes a female poor relation).
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac, (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus. Owing to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multi-faceted characters; even his lesser characters are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. Inanimate objects are imbued with character as well; the city of Paris, a backdrop for much of his writing, takes on many human qualities. His writing influenced many famous writers, including the novelists Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, and Henry James, and filmmakers François Truffaut and Jacques Rivette. Many of Balzac's works have been made into films and continue to inspire other writers.
