Madame Bovary (Marx-Aveling translation)

For other English-language translations of this work, see Madame Bovary.

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Madame Bovary (1886)
by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

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a novel 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).

Gustave Flaubert84683Madame Bovary1886Eleanor Marx-Aveling

Madame Bovary (Marx-Aveling translation)

Table of contents

Part I

Part II

Part III