The courtesan Esther and the young poet Lucien de Rubempré are in love with each other. However, Nucingen, a wealthy Parisian banker, is also captivated by Esther's beauty, and he will stop at nothing to possess her. In his novel "The Splendor and Misery of Courtesans," Balzac presents a comprehensive study of the Parisian underworld, a world of both major and minor crooks, prostitution, and the methods of justice and police. In none of his other works is the central theme of the Comédie humaine, the destructive power of passion, explored among so many different social classes simultaneously. And in none of Balzac's other works is the critique of contemporary society articulated as sharply as in his courtesan novel.