An elderly, unappreciated art collector is circled by greedy relatives and a scheming concierge once word gets out that his cluttered apartment hides a fortune in paintings.
Books mentioned in Cousin Pons (3)
Les Deux Amis by Jean de La Fontaine: “But for La Fontaine's fable, Les Deux Amis, this sketch should have borne the title of The Two Friends; but to take the name of this divine story would surely be a deed of violence, a profanation from which every true man of letters would shrink.”
Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: “The Highland widow, in The Chronicles of the Canongate, sent her son to his death to have him beside her for twenty-four hours; and Schmucke could have sacrificed Pons for the sake of seeing his face every day across the dinner-table.”
Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac: “Every one, no doubt, wishes to know what became of the heroine of a story only too veracious in its details; a chronicle which, taken with its twin sister the preceding volume, La Cousine Bette, proves that Character is a great social force.”
Books that mention Cousin Pons (1)
New Grub Street by George Gissing: “I have just been reading his "Cousin Pons," a terrible book, but I enjoyed it ever so much because it was nothing like a love story.”