Madame Bovary

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This booktable of contents linked to every part and chapter. *****************************. Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert, who was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between October 1, 1856 and December 15, 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made the story notorious. After the acquittal on February 7, 1857, it became a bestseller in book form in April 1857, and now stands virtually unchallenged not only as a seminal work of Realism, but as one of the most influential novels ever written. 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 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. .