A Harlot High and Low

Lucien de Rubempré returns to Paris under the protection of the mysterious Spanish priest Carlos Herrera, who supplies the money and influence needed to restore Lucien’s social position. Lucien hopes to marry into wealth, but his continuing attachment to the courtesan Esther van Gobseck threatens the scheme. Herrera hides Esther away and tries to turn her beauty into an instrument for securing Lucien’s future.

When the wealthy Baron de Nucingen becomes obsessed with Esther, Herrera arranges a transaction that draws courtesans, financiers, police agents and aristocrats into the same web of deception. Esther’s despair and Lucien’s arrest bring the conspiracy before the criminal authorities, where Herrera’s identity and methods are exposed. The novel follows ambition into imprisonment, suicide and betrayal as Parisian society and the police system close around Lucien.