her bank business. She dedicates her life to supporting her brother, an attractive but mediocre man with an illegitimate daughter, Celeste.

Celeste's mother, Flavie, is a social climber who takes lovers to advance her husband's career - and to find a rich husband for her daughter.

The murky waters are further muddied by the arrival of the lawyer Theodose de La Peyrade, who targets the hand of Celeste (and her inheritance).

It is all rather unbecoming as the vultures circle around Celeste, and Balzac exposes the greed that exists at this level of French society.

If you like office intrigue, try 'The Way We Live Now' by Anthony Trollope. Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) was a French novelist and playwright, most famous for a sequence of novels, collectively called 'The Human Comedy'. His signature style was a warts-and-all representation of post-Napoleonic French life, rich in detail and featuring complex, unfiltered characters. The style means Balzac is regarded as one of the pioneers of European literary realism. He is named as an influence on writers including Emile Zola, Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Gustave Flaubert. The first novel he published under his own name was 'Les Chouans' in 1829. In 1834 he hit upon the idea of grouping his novels together to record all of society. The result, over a period of years, was 'The Human Comedy', which comprised three categories: 'Analytic Studies'; 'Philosophical Studies'; and 'Studies of Manners'.