Cousin Pons (Esprios Classics)

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, with a male poor relation, Pons, as its subject, (La Cousine Bette describes a female poor relation). The novella was based on a short story by an acquaintance of Balzac, Albéric Second, as Tim Farrant has demonstrated. Its original title was to have been "Le Parasite". Sylvain Pons, a musician in a Parisian boulevard orchestra, has a close friend in another musician from the orchestra, the German pianist Wilhelm Schmucke.