Books by Gustave Flaubert

Book SynopsisWith an Introduction by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury. Translation by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. Castigated for offending against public decency, Madame Bovary has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert's contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist's meticulous account of provincial matters. For the writer, subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors the formal experiments that underpin Madame Bovary look forward to the innovations of contemporary fiction. Flaubert's protagonist in particular has never ceased to fascinate. Romantic heroine or middle-class neurotic, flawed wife and mother or passionate protester against the conventions of bourgeois society, simultaneously the subject of Flaubert's admiration and the butt of his irony - Emma Bovary remains one of the most enigmatic of fictional creations. Flaubert's meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of modern fiction.

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Book SynopsisGustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821. After illness interrupted a career in law, he retired to live with his widowed mother and devote himself to writing. He achieved limited success in his own lifetime, but his fame and reputation grew steadily after his death in 1880.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.for her, life was as cold as an attic with a window looking to the north, and ennui, like a spider, was silently spinning its shadowy web in every cranny of her heart.'Married to Charles, a provincial doctor, Emma Bovary yearns for a more glamorous life. Disenchanted with her husband and seeking an escape from their dull marriage she is soon tempted into a brief romantic liaison with another man. Although short-lived, she remains desirous of passion and the finer things in life and embarks on another affair, destroying her reputation.Considered scandalous at the time, Emma Bovary's superficial and immoral behaviour shocked readers and caused moral outcry. Flaubert holds up to ridicule not only Madame Bovary herself, but the society that dares to judge her.

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Book SynopsisFor daring to peer into the heart of an adulteress and enumerate its contents with profound dispassion, the author of Madame Bovary was tried for 'offenses against morality and religion.' What shocks us today about Flaubert's devastatingly realized tale of a young woman destroyed by the reckless pursuit of her romantic dreams is its pure artistry: the poise of its narrative structure, the opulence of its prose (marvelously captured in the English translation of Francis Steegmuller), and its creation of a world whose minor figures are as vital as its doomed heroine. In reading Madame Bovary, one experiences a work that remains genuinely revolutionary almost a century and a half after its creation.

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Book Synopsis''She decided she would teach him to speak and he was very soon able to say, ''Pretty boy!'', ''Your servant, sir!'' and ''Hail Mary!''''With pathos and humour, Flaubert imagines the unexamined life of a servant girl.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880). Flaubert''s works available in Penguin Classics are Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education, Three Tales and Salammbo.

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Book SynopsisBeautiful Emma Bovary dreams of love and riches but her marriage to Charles, a dull country doctor, is far from satisfying. In an attempt to escape the narrow confines of her life, she embarks on a series of passionate affairs, hoping to find the romantic ideal she always dreamed about in the arms of other men, but it soon becomes clear that she is hurtling towards tragedy . . . Gustave Flaubert’s daring portrait of adultery caused a national scandal when Madame Bovary was first published, and this masterpiece of realist literature has lost none of its impact today. This beautiful Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of Madame Bovary is translated by Eleanor Marx Aveling and features an afterword by the playwright, screenwriter and actor, Peter Harness. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much-loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector’s Library are books to love and treasure.

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Book SynopsisA NEW TRANSLATION BY ADAM THORPEA great novel that is also an inexhaustible pleasure to read'' GuardianEmma Bovary is an avid reader of sentimental novels; brought up on a Normandy farm and convent-educated, she longs for romance. At first, Emma pins her hopes on marriage, but life with her well-meaning husband in the provinces leaves her bored and dissatisfied. She seeks escape through extravagant spending sprees and, eventually, adultery. As Emma pursues her impossible reverie she seals her own ruin. Madame Bovary is one of the greatest, most beguiling novels ever written.Thorpe''s new translation is stunning and heartily recommendedScotsmanThorpe''s new translation is to die for'Independent[Thorpe's] hard work has yielded beauty. The rhythms are perfectly judged, unexpected enough to make the reader attend to every word'Robert Chandler, TLSTrade ReviewMagnificent. I insist everyone reads Adam Thorpe's new translation. * Vogue *A handsomely bound hardback edition that perfectly befits the beautiful new translation therein... we are pretty confident that Thorpe's bash at Bovary is a contender for the new best English version out there. Sensitive and musical, and simply and wittily annotated, it's got "new classic" written all over it. Plus it's dressed in this really elegant embroidered design by Karen Nichols, so everything gangs up and makes it basically a must-buy. * Dazed and Confused *Flaubert's 1856 novel begins with marriage and what follows is the archetypal tale of a desperate housewife * Daily Telegraph *Mesmerising * Independent *The most scandalous novel of all time * Playboy *

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Book SynopsisFlaubert's unforgettable memoirs of travels abroadAt once a classic of travel literature and a penetrating portrait of a “sensibility on tour,” Flaubert in Egypt wonderfully captures the young writer’s impressions during his 1849 voyages. Using diaries, letters, travel notes, and the evidence of Flaubert’s traveling companion, Maxime Du Camp, Francis Steegmuller reconstructs his journey through the bazaars and brothels of Cairo and down the Nile to the Red Sea.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Book SynopsisOne of the great French novels of the 19th centuryBased on Flaubert's own youthful passion for an older woman, Sentimental Education was described by its author as the moral history of the men of my generation. It follows the amorous adventures of Frederic Moreau, a law student who, returning home to Normandy from Paris, notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime. He befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and as their paths cross and re-cross over the years, Mme Arnoux remains the constant, unattainable love of Moreau's life. Blending love story, historical authenticity, and satire, Sentimental Education is one of the great French novels of the nineteenth century.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Clas

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Book SynopsisThree stories by a French masterFirst published in 1877, these three stories are dominated by questions of doubt, love, loneliness, and religious experience—together they confirm Flaubert as a master of the short story. “A Simple Heart” relates the story of Félicité, an uneducated serving-woman who retains her Catholic faith despite a life of desolation and loss. “The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator,” inspired by a stained-glass window in Rouen cathedral, describes the fate of a sadistic hunter destined to murder his own parents. The blend of faith and cruelty that dominates this story may also be found in “Herodias,” a reworking of the tale of Salome and John the Baptist.This new edition is a completely new translation with a new introduction by Geoffrey Wall, Flaubert's acclaimed biographer. It features a chronology, further reading, and explanantory notes.For more than seventy years, Penguin has

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Book SynopsisThe notorious and celebrated novel that established modern realism For this novel of French bourgeois life in all its inglorious banality, Flaubert invented a paradoxically original and wholly modern style. His heroine, Emma Bovary, a bored provincial housewife, abandons her husband to pursue the libertine Rodolphe in a desperate love affair. A succès de scandale in its day, Madame Bovary remains a powerful and scintillating novel.This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes and an introduction by Geoffrey Wall. It includes a preface by Michele Roberts. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by dTrade Review"Madame Bovary is like the railroad stations erected in its epoch: graceful, even floral, but cast of iron." -- John Updike

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Book SynopsisEmma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert''s erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: ''Madame Bovary, c''est moi''.Trade Review"Madame Bovary is like the railroad stations erected in its epoch: graceful, even floral, but cast of iron." -- John Updike

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Book SynopsisA major new translation of one of the most popular classics of all time, now in a gorgeous deluxe edition. Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert''s erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: ''Madame Bovary, c''est moi''.Trade ReviewNational BestsellerWinner of the French-American Foundation Translation PrizeOne of New York magazine’s Ten Best Books of the YearA Providence Journal Best Book of the YearOne of National Public Radio’s Favorite Books of the Year“Lydia Davis’s Madame Bovary translation=perfect. She somehow pulls off a respectful translation with the readability of a contemporary novel.” —@lenadunham "[Flaubert's] masterwork has been given the English translation it deserves." —Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review"Invigorating . . . [Davis] has a finer ear for the natural cadences of English, in narrative and dialogue, than any of her predecessors." —Jonathan Raban, The New York Review of Books"Dazzling . . . translated to perfect pitch . . . [Davis has] left us the richer with this translation. . . . I'd certainly say it is necessary to have hers." —Jacki Lyden, NPR.org, Favorite Books of the Year"One of the most important books of the year . . . Flaubert's strict, elegant, rhythmic sentences come alive in Davis's English." —James Wood, The New Yorker's Book Bench"I liked having a chance to find more nuances in Madame Bovary in the new Lydia Davis translation and read it blissfully as though floating, as Flaubert puts it in a different context, 'in a river of milk.'" —Paul Theroux, The Guardian (London), Books of the Year"Madame Bovary reads like it was written yesterday. . . . Emma, with her visions of a grander life and resplendent passions, is me . . . and you, too, no doubt. . . . If you haven't happened to read Madame Bovary until now, I suggest you curl up with this edition . . . and allow yourself to get lost in another time and place that yet bears a curious resemblance to our own." —Daphne Merkin, Elle"Davis is the best fiction writer ever to translate the novel. . . . [Her] work shares the Flaubertian virtues of compression, irony and an extreme sense of control." —Julian Barnes, London Review of Books"A brilliant new translation." —Lee Siegel, The New York Observer"I'm grateful to Davis for luring me back to Madame Bovary and for giving us a version which strikes me as elegant and alive." —Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air"Flaubert's obsessive masterpiece finally gets the obsessive translation it deserves." —New York magazine

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Book SynopsisEmma Bovary yearns for a life of luxury and passion of the kind she reads about in romantic novels. But life with her country doctor husband in the provinces is unutterably boring, and she embarks on love affairs to realize her fantasies. This new translation by Margaret Mauldon perfectly captures Flaubert's distinctive style.Trade ReviewA superb new translation. s

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Book SynopsisThree Tales offers an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world''s greatest novelists. A Simple Heart is set in the Normandy of Flaubert''s childhood, while Saint Julian and Herodias draw on medieval myth and the biblical story of John the Baptist for their inspiration. Each of the tales invites comparison with one or other of Flaubert''s novels, but they also reveal a fresh and distinctive side to the writers''s genius. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade Review`A. J. Krailsheimer's new translation adheres more faithfully to Flaubert's idiosyncratic sentence structures...authentically captures the original's elliptical nature, with its ghostly authorial voice.' * Sunday Telegraph *`Intensely brilliant prose from the acclaimed author of Madame Bovary. These classic tales reflect Flaubert`s talent as a witty narrator and in particular A Simple Heart presents a wonderfully evocative portrait of 19th Century France.' * Wales on Sunday *Table of ContentsA Simple Heart ; The Legend of Saint Julian The Hospitaller ; Herodias

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Book SynopsisThe text of this Norton Critical Edition is based on Eleanor Marx Aveling’s celebrated translation, revised by Paul de Man.

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Book SynopsisThis exquisite novel tells the story of one of the most compelling heroines in modern literature--Emma Bovary. Madame Bovary has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone; it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgement. - Henry James Unhappily married to a devoted, clumsy provincial doctor, Emma revolts against the ordinariness of her life by pursuing voluptuous dreams of ecstasy and love. But her sensuous and sentimental desires lead her only to suffering corruption and downfall. A brilliant psychological portrait, Madame Bovary searingly depicts the human mind in search of transcendence. Who is Madame Bovary? Flaubert's answer to this question was superb: Madame Bovary, c'est moi. Acclaimed as a masterpiece upon its publication in 1857, the work catapulted Flaubert to the ranks of the world's greatest novelists. This volume, with its fine

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Book SynopsisEmma, a passionate dreamer raised in the French countryside, is ready for her life to take off when she marries the decent, dull Dr. Charles Bovary. Marriage, however, fails to live up to her expectations, which are fueled by sentimental novels, and she turns disastrously to love affairs. The story of Emma’s adultery scandalized France when Madame Bovary was first published. Today, the heartbreaking story of Emma’s financial ruin remains just as compelling.In Madame Bovary, his story of a shallow, deluded, unfaithful, but consistently compelling woman living in the provinces of nineteenth-century France, Gustave Flaubert invented not only the modern novel but also a modern attitude toward human character and human experience that remains with us to this day. One of the rare works of art that it would be fair to call perfect, Madame Bovary has had an incalculable influence on the literary culture that followed it. This translation

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Book Synopsis“Perhaps we identify with Emma because we too feel an emptiness at the center of things—an emptiness we try to fill with books, with fantasies, with sex, with things. Her yearning is nothing more or less than the human condition in the modern world. Her search for ecstasy is ours.”—Erica Jong "Madame Bovaryhas a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone: it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgment."-Henry James When Gustave Flaubert’s debut novel Madame Bovary (1856) was published it had already created a great storm of both repulsion and profound admiration; it is now recognized as one of the most important works of literature ever written. When the story initially appeared in serial form it was attacked as a work of blatant indecency , and Flaubert was thrust into immediate celebrity. In the resulting obscenity trial, the author was acquitted, and by its publication date its existence was well known in France. Immediately a bestseller, the French public embraced the book with polarity; many repugnant with its attack on convention, and many recognizing its great humanity and depth. The novel begins with the introduction of Charles Bovary, an unremarkable man who becomes a country doctor in the north of France. During one of his rounds he falls under the spell of Emma Rouault, the beautiful daughter of one of his patients. When Bovary’s wife unexpectedly passes away, he marries Emma, whose expectation of life becomes increasingly unfulfilled. After the birth of her child, she spins into a series of uncontrollable urges and bad choices that leads to her tragic downfall. With its unique shifting of perspectives, deep humanity, and bleak honesty, Madame Bovary is a classic that must be read. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Madame Bovary is both modern and readable.

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Book SynopsisA fresh and vivid translation of Flaubert’s influential bildungsroman Gustave Flaubert conceived Sentimental Education, his final complete novel, as the history of his own generation, one that failed to fulfill the promise of the Revolution of 1848. Published a few months before the start of the 1870 Franco–Prussian War, it offers both a sweeping panorama of French society over three decades and an intimate bildungsroman of a young man from a small town who arrives in Paris when protests against the monarchy are increasing. The novel’s protagonist, Frédéric Moreau, alternates between aimlessness and ambition as he searches for a meaningful life through love affairs and republican politics. Flaubert’s narrative includes scenes of high drama, as scattered protests across Paris swell into revolution, and quiet moments of self-aware romanticism, crafting a story that possesses the sweep and scope of a historical novel combined with deep emotion and scandalous intimacy. Suffused with tragedy and the poignancy of lost chances and wasted lives, Sentimental Education is sharpened by satirical observations of what Flaubert condemned as the Second Empire’s endemic hypocrisy and willful blindness. This vibrant, new translation by Raymond N. MacKenzie includes an extensive critical introduction and annotations to help the modern reader appreciate Flaubert’s achievement. Sentimental Education intertwines the personal, the intimate, and the subjective with the political, social, and cultural, embedding Frédéric’s story in the larger arc of what Flaubert saw as France’s decline into mediocrity and imbecility in its politics and manners.

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Book SynopsisIn his Introduction, MacKenzie discusses Flaubert's life, the writing of Madame Bovary, the world in which the novel is set, and its publication and reception. Footnotes, a bibliography, and a chronology are also provided.Trade ReviewAfter his beautiful translation of Baudelaire's Paris Spleen, Raymond N. MacKenzie now offers us a fresh, superb version of Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Impeccably transparent, this new translation captures the original's careful, precise language and admirably conveys the small-mindedness of nineteenth-century provincial French towns. MacKenzie's tour de force transports the reader to Yonville and compels him to look at Emma with Flaubert's calm, disenchanted eyes. --Thomas Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor, University of ChicagoRaymond N. MacKenzie's fresh and faithful translation of Madame Bovary will enable a new generation of readers to discover the wonderful complexities of Flaubert's sardonic presentation of the yawning gulf between a woman's expectations of life and the realities she finds in nineteenth-century provincial France. By capturing the rhythms of the original French, and adopting a vocabulary which is neither too contemporary nor too dated, MacKenzie gives his readers the opportunity to enter into the heart of one of the great classics of world literature. --Rosemary Lloyd, Rudy Professor of French, Emerita, Indiana University

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Book SynopsisIn his Introduction, MacKenzie discusses Flaubert's life, the writing of Madame Bovary, the world in which the novel is set, and its publication and reception. Footnotes, a bibliography, and a chronology are also provided.Trade ReviewAfter his beautiful translation of Baudelaire's Paris Spleen, Raymond N. MacKenzie now offers us a fresh, superb version of Madame Bovary by Flaubert. Impeccably transparent, this new translation captures the original's careful, precise language and admirably conveys the small-mindedness of nineteenth-century provincial French towns. MacKenzie's tour de force transports the reader to Yonville and compels him to look at Emma with Flaubert's calm, disenchanted eyes. --Thomas Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor, University of ChicagoRaymond N. MacKenzie's fresh and faithful translation of Madame Bovary will enable a new generation of readers to discover the wonderful complexities of Flaubert's sardonic presentation of the yawning gulf between a woman's expectations of life and the realities she finds in nineteenth-century provincial France. By capturing the rhythms of the original French, and adopting a vocabulary which is neither too contemporary nor too dated, MacKenzie gives his readers the opportunity to enter into the heart of one of the great classics of world literature. --Rosemary Lloyd, Rudy Professor of French, Emerita, Indiana University

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Book Synopsis“If there is one article of faith that dominates the Credo of Gustave Flaubert’s correspondence,” Francis Steegmuller writes in the introduction to this selection of Flaubert’s letters, “it is that the function of great art is not to provide ‘answers.’” The Letters of Gustave Flaubert is above all a record of the intransigent questions—personal, political, artistic—with which Flaubert struggled throughout his life.Here we have Flaubert’s youthful, sensual outpourings to his mistress, the poet Louise Colet, and, as he advances, still unknown, into his thirties, the wrestle to write Madame Bovary. We hear, too, of his life-changing trip to Egypt, as described to family and friends, and then there are lively exchanges with Baudelaire, with the influential critic Sainte-Beuve, and with Guy de Maupassant, his young protégé. Flaubert’s letters to George Sand reveal her as the great confidante of his later years.Steegmuller’s book, a classic in its own right, is both a splendid life of Flaubert in his own words and the ars poetica of the master who laid the foundations for modern writers from James Joyce to Lydia Davis. Originally issued in two volumes, the book appears here for the first time under a single cover.

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Book Synopsis'She wanted to die, and she wanted to live in Paris.'This is the story of Emma, trapped in a disappointing marriage with a dull country doctor, she dreams for a life more like the sentimental novels she reads. In an attempt to break from the drab reality of her provincial life in Normandy, Emma takes a lover, and disaster soon follows.Greedy, delusional and selfish, the character of Emma Bovary scandalised readers from the novel's first publication in 1857, yet her magnetism is undeniable. A landmark work in modern realism, Madame Bovary vibrates with the inner life of a woman hungry for more.Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.Trade ReviewA work of brilliance * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisMadame Bovary is one of the greatest, most beguiling novels ever written.Emma Bovary is an avid reader of sentimental novels; brought up on a Normandy farm and convent-educated, she longs for romance. At first, Emma pins her hopes on marriage, but life with her well-meaning husband in the provinces leaves her bored and dissatisfied. She seeks escape through extravagant spending sprees and, eventually, adultery. As Emma pursues her impossible reverie she seals her own ruin.'A great novel that is also an inexhaustible pleasure to read' GuardianA NEW TRANSLATION BY ADAM THORPEVINTAGE FRENCH CLASSICS - six masterpieces of French fiction in collectable editions.Trade ReviewA work of brilliance * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisBeautiful Emma Rouault yearns for the life of wealth, passion and romance she has encountered in popular sentimental fiction, and when her doctor, the well-meaning but awkward and unremarkable Charles Bovary, begins to pay her attention, she imagines that she may be granted her wish. However, after their marriage, Emma soon becomes frustrated with the boredom of provincial life and finds herself seeking escape and contemplating adultery. As Emma’s efforts to make a reality of her fantasies become more dangerous, both she and those around her must face the shattering consequences of her actions. Causing widespread scandal when it was published in 1857, Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece and one of the landmark works of nineteenth-century realist fiction.Trade ReviewMr Moncrieff has succeeded in rendering Madame Bovary in a flowing, modern style while not losing the flavour of Flaubert's French. * The Use of English *It has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone. -- Henry James

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Book SynopsisA unique edition containing two stories, both precursors to Flaubert's later masterpiece, A Sentimental Education

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