1857French Realism
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert · 1821–1880 · France
Originally Madame Bovary (French)
Why it matters
Prosecuted for immorality and acquitted into immortality: a provincial wife's romantic fantasies meet reality's bill. The first novel where style itself is the morality: the model of exactitude every later novelist must accept or fight.
At a glance
psychological noveltragedy
Difficulty 5/10slow pace336 pagesCelebrated for its exacting style indirect libre, demanding close attention to shifting perspective.
Deep dive
How Flaubert's free indirect style fuses Emma's clichés with the narrator's irony so tightly you can't find the seam — and why the novel's final chapters refuse her the one thing her fantasies always promised.
