The betrayal of Goriot's daughters is often compared to that of the characters in Shakespeare's "King Lear"; Balzac was even accused of plagiarism when the novel was first published. Discussing these similarities, critic George Saintsbury claims that Goriot's daughters are "as surely murderesses of their father as daughters Goneril and Regan". As Herbert J. Hunt points out in "Balzac's Comédie humaine", however, Goriot's tale is in some ways more tragic, since "he has a Regan and a Goneril, but no Cordelia".