Poor Relations by Honoré de Balzac
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more pathetic if less "grimy," than its companion, full of its
author's idiosyncracy, and characteristic of his genius. It may not be uninteresting to add that _Le Cousin Pons_ was originally called _Le Deux Musiciens_, or _Le Parasite_, and that the change, which is a great improvement, was due to the instances of Madame Hanska. The bibliography of the two divisions of _Les Parents Pauvres_ is so closely connected, that it is difficult to extricate the separate histories. Originally the author had intended to begin with _Le Cousin Pons_ (which then bore the title of _Les Deux Musiciens_), and to make it the more important of the two; but _La Cousine Bette_ grew under his hands, and became, in more than one sense, the leader. Both appeared in the _Constitutionnel_; the first between October 8th and December 3rd, 1846, the second between March 18th and May of the next year. In the winter of 1847-48 the two were published as a book in twelve volumes by Chlendowski and Petion. In the newspaper (where Balzac received--a rarely exact detail--12,836 francs for the _Cousine_, and 9,238 for the _Cousin_) the first-named had thirty-eight headed chapter-divisions, which in book form became a hundred and thirty-two. _Le Cousin Pons_ had two parts in _feuilleton_, and thirty-one chapters, which in book form became no parts and seventy-eight chapters. All divisions were swept away when, at the end of 1848, the books were added together to the _Comedie_. George Saintsbury I |
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