Who will win the prize of marrying Eugénie Grandet?
Felix Grandet, having married well and become a wealthy landowner and wine-grower, is a miser who watches like a hawk the sugar lumps and the bread slices. The question of who will marry his daughter and inherit his fortune fuels endless speculation in the town of Saumur. The arrival of Eugénie’s cousin sparks feelings and a resolve that puts her on a collision course with her father’s control. As the years pass and she must navigate the self-interest of potential suitors, we see how habits manifest themselves in a new generation.
It was while working on Eugénie Grandet that Balzac conceived his magnum opus La Comédie humaine, a huge collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society between 1815 and 1848. Sitting within this collection beneath the heading of ‘Scenes from Provincial Life’, Eugénie Grandet (1833) is a brilliantly woven, deeply affecting tale with the disease of avarice at its heart.