World's Classics: Madame Bovary

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'Emma found in adultery nothing but the platitudes of marriage.' Observations like this provoked a scandalized reception for Flaubert's first published novel, and he was put on trial for offending public morality. Madame Bovary is the story of a young country doctor's wife who seeks escape from the boredom of her existence in love affairs and romantic yearnings, and who is doomed to disillusionment. By his brilliant evocation of Emma, a figure both absurd and pathetic, and of the petty provincialism that surrounds her, Flaubert established the realistic novel in France; but his concern was with more than mere description. His preoccupation with style and with the aesthetic transformation of a mundane and vulgar reality is what gives the novel its lasting fascination and its place as a landmark in world literature. (back cover)