Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary  (1856)  by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert that was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialised in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made it notorious. After the acquittal on 7 February, it became a bestseller in book form in April 1857, and is now seen as one of the first modern realistic novels. The novel 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. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was notoriously perfectionistic about his writing and claimed to always be searching for le mot juste (the right word). — Excerpted from Madame Bovary on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Table of contents

• Dedication

Part I

• Chapter one
• Chapter two
• Chapter three
• Chapter four
• Chapter five
• Chapter six
• Chapter seven
• Chapter eight
• Chapter nine

Part II

• Chapter one
• Chapter two
• Chapter three
• Chapter four
• Chapter five
• Chapter six
• Chapter seven
• Chapter eight
• Chapter nine
• Chapter ten
• Chapter eleven
• Chapter twelve
• Chapter thirteen
• Chapter fourteen

Part III

• Chapter one
• Chapter two
• Chapter three
• Chapter four
• Chapter five
• Chapter six
• Chapter seven
• Chapter eight
• Chapter nine
• Chapter ten
• Chapter eleven

This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.