Eugénie Grandet (1833), a masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac, forms part of his vast series La Comédie humaine. Set in the provincial town of Saumur, the novel centers on Félix Grandet, a former cooper whose shrewd speculation has made him the richest man in town, though he lives in miserly squalor. His gentle daughter Eugénie falls in love with her cousin Charles, ruined by his father's bankruptcy. Sacrificing her gold to save him, she endures her father's tyrannical wrath and lifelong repression. Through the Grandet household, Balzac vividly exposes the corrosive power of greed, showing how money destroys family bonds and crushes human tenderness.
