Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, translated variously as The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans, A Harlot High and Low, or as Lost Souls, is an 1838-1847 novel by French novelist Honoré de Balzac, published in four initially separate parts: Esther Happy What Love Costs an Old Man The End of Evil Ways The Last Incarnation of Vautrin It continues the story of Lucien de Rubempré, who was a main character in Illusions perdues, a preceding Balzac novel. Wikipedia