La Rabouilleuse (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This is the tale of the Bridau family as they try to regain their rightful inheritance after a series of unfortunate setbacks. Agathe Rouget is sent to live in Paris with relatives, where she meets and marries a man named Bridau. They raise two sons—but Agathe runs into trouble when the costs of living rise too high. The title of this novel is often translated as The Black Sheep.

Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) was one of the supreme French novelists. His monumental series of stories and novels, La Comedie humaine, was his masterwork—describing life in France in the post-Napoleonic era. Regarded as a founding father of realism, his characters were drawn with a depth previously absent from literature.