Madame Bovary (Oxford Pocket Classics) - Hardcover

Gustave Flaubert

3.7

334,017 ratings by Goodreads

9780517626368: Madame Bovary (Oxford Pocket Classics)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517626365 ISBN 13: 9780517626368

Publisher: Avenel Books, 1986

View all copies of this ISBN 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'.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

The year 1857 propelled Flaubert into the law courts and into celebrity. It was not exactly the kind of celebrity he had wished for. 'Madame Bovary' had appeared serially in 'La Revue de Paris'. Now the imperial prosecutor was attacking the work for being offensive to religion and morality. Not only the seduction scenes, but the episodes dealing with religion and the description of Emma's death, came under direct censure. More than the subject, the general tone of the novel was denounced as immoral: the pervasive eroticism, the poetry of adultery, the so-called 'realism' of the style. Flaubert, excellently defended by his lawyer, was acquitted. The book was published soon after, benefiting from the advance courtroom publicity.

About the Author:

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) is recognized as one of the most important authors of 19th-century literature. When Madame Bovary was published in 1857, France was scandalized by the passionate love story and Flaubert was put on trial for offending public morality. Flaubert was the much-admired friend and influential mentor of such writers as Turgenev and the young Guy de Maupassant.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.