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The Deserted Woman
Honoré de Balzac · 1833 · Romance, Drama & Literary
Abandoned by the world after a great scandal, the proud Vicomtesse de Beauseant retires to a lonely manor in Normandy and shuts her heart against love. Then young Gaston de Nueil, starved for feeling, contrives to meet her — and lays a long, patient siege to a woman who has sworn never to be hurt again. What follows is one of Balzac's most piercing studies of love: the intoxication of a happiness stolen from the world, and the cruelty of the duty and ambition that come, at last, to claim it. A compact, unbearably intimate tale from La Comedie humaine. Complete and richly illustrated.
Inside this edition
Every LitLab edition is illustrated from the text itself — the world of the book mapped, its people drawn, its scenes staged. 18 plates are open to everyone in this book; here are 8 of them.
The World of The Deserted Woman — Bayeux, Courcelles, Lake Geneva, and the valley of the Auge.
Bayeux & the Provincial Salons
The World of The Deserted Woman — a conceptual web of its people, places, and objects.
The Characters — the cast of The Deserted Woman.
The Vicomtesse de Beauséant (Claire de Bourgogne) — the deserted woman.
Gaston de Nueil — the young lover.
The two lovers by Lake Geneva.
The happy years on Lake Geneva.
This edition
- Title
- The Deserted Woman
- Author
- Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850)
- First published
- 1833
- Illustrated plates
- 40 original artworks · 18 open to everyone
- Chapters
- 3 · about 17,168 words
- Reading time
- 1 h 9 min
- Language
- EN
- Formats
- Read online · EPUB and PDF download with a subscription
- Publisher
- LitLab — The Illustrated Classics
- On LitLab since
- August 2026
- Rights
- Text in the public domain. Illustrations and edition © LitLab.
- Source text
- Project Gutenberg #1729
Neighbours in the library
Chosen by what they share with The Deserted Woman — the same author, the same genre.