Madame Bovary (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781466210301)

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT was born in Rouen in 1821, the son of a distinguished surgeon and a doctor's daughter. After three unhappy years of studying law in Paris, an epileptic attack ushered him into a life of writing. "Madame Bovary" won instant acclaim upon book publication in 1857, but Flaubert's frank display of adultery in bourgeois France saw him go on trial for immorality, only narrowly escaping conviction. Both "Salammbo "(1862) and "The Sentimental Education" (1869) were poorly received, and Flaubert's genius was not publicly recognized until "Three Tales" (1877). His reputation among his fellow writers, however, was more constant and those who admired him included Turgenev, George Sand, Victor Hugo and Zola. Flaubert's obsession with his art is legendary: he would work for days on a single page, obsessively attuning sentences, seeking always le mot juste in a quest for both beauty and precise observation. Flaubert died suddenly in May 1880, leaving his last work, "Bouvard and Pecuchet," unfinished.