Gustave Flaubert 1821 – 1880

Biography

Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, France, the son of a surgeon, and abandoned law studies to devote himself to literature. He spent five years writing Madame Bovary, the story of Emma Bovary, a doctor’s wife whose romantic dreams lead her to adultery and ruin. Published in 1857, it brought a prosecution for offending public morals, from which he was acquitted, and it revolutionized the novel with its impersonal narration and obsessive attention to style, the doctrine of le mot juste, the exactly right word. He followed it with Sentimental Education, Salammbô, and the unfinished Bouvard and Pécuchet, and corresponded voluminously with fellow writers. He died at his home in Croisset, near Rouen, in 1880. His letters, published after his death, are themselves a classic of French literature, revealing his relentless pursuit of perfection.