Emma Bovary, daughter of an uneducated farmer and wife of a dull doctor in northern France, harbors a passion for everything beyond her grasp—sophistication, romance, love, and deliverance from her banal provincial life. Motivated by the primal, idealized, and vain, she seeks adventure. And with each new endeavor, Emma sets for herself an inevitable and inescapable trap.
Condemned as an affront to public morals, Madame Bovary’s obscenity trial made it notorious. Today, Emma stands as one of fiction’s most famous figures, and the novel itself, among the most pioneering and influential in world literature.
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Revised edition: Previously published as Madame Bovary, this edition of Madame Bovary (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.
Born in Rouen in northern France, memoirist and novelist Gustave Flaubert (18211880) is considered the chief influence of the realist school of French literature.
Educated at Rouens Lycée Pierre Corneille, Flaubert moved to Paris to study law while eager to pursue a career in literature and writing. It was there that Flaubert developed a distaste for the bourgeoisie that would inform his debut novel, Madame Bovary. Though his obsession for perfection and finding le mot juste led to morbid bouts of depression, he produced seven more works in his lifetime. Flauberts final novel, Bouvard et Pécuchet, a satire on the ubiquitous mediocrity of the middle class, was published posthumously.
Born in London, Eleanor Marx-Aveling (18551898) was an activist, politician, actress, translator, feminist, and youngest daughter of Karl Marx.
From childhood through adulthood, Eleanor divided her time between three passions: social activism, writing, and literature. They coalesced when Eleanor became her fathers secretary, later editing and translating editions of Capital. An ardent feminist, she was also drawn to the theater where she starred in a groundbreaking production of A Dolls House. She later learned Norwegian expressly to translate Henrik Ibsens revolutionary plays. Eleanor Marx-Aveling is best known today for producing the very first translation of Flauberts Madame Bovary.
