Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary (published 1856) is the French writer Gustave Flaubert’s debut novel. The story focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.

     When the novel was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between October 1, 1856-December 15, 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert’s acquittal on February 7, 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published as a single volume. The novel is now considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, as well as a seminal work of literary realism and one of the most influential novels. The British critic James Wood writes: “Flaubert established, for good or ill, what most readers think of as modern realist narration, and his influence is almost too familiar to be visible.”