Examines the portrayal of sexuality in Balzac and the psychoanalytic preoccupations of his critics.

Acknowledgments ix
Preface xiii
Introduction: Balzac and Alternative Families 1
1. Legal Melancholy: Balzac's Eugénie Grandet and the Napoleonic Code 31
2. On Not Getting Married in a Balzac Novel 65
Interlude: Balzac and Same-Sex Relations in the 1830s 82
3. Balzac's Queer Cousins and Their Friends 124
4. The Shadow Economy of Queer Social Capital: Lucien de Rubempré and Vautrin 171
Epilogue: Vautrin's Progeny 225
Notes 239
Works Cited 289
Index 303