Gustave Flaubert Books

I began with mediocrity, because it is from mediocrity that tragedy often springs. Charles Bovary, my hapless country doctor, is a man without malice, without brilliance, and perhaps without passion. His youth is marked by obedience—a life arranged rather than chosen. Through his school days, his cl...

From Madame Bovary

When Charles meets Emma Rouault at her father’s farm, it is not love that stirs most deeply—but idealization. Emma, educated in a convent and nourished on romantic novels, is already intoxicated with the idea of passion. For her, the notion of marriage shines like a promise of perpetual ecstasy, a l...

From Madame Bovary

In the beginning, Frédéric Moreau is a young man from the provinces, standing on the deck of a riverboat bound for Paris. The scene might seem trivial — a simple voyage toward a city — but for him it signals everything: the beginning of life, of love, of possibilities endless and untried. On that bo...

From Sentimental Education: The History of a Young Man

The death of Frédéric’s uncle brings him an inheritance, and with money comes the illusion of power. Now, armed with wealth, he believes he can finally enter the glittering Parisian world he had only admired from afar. The salons open, friendships multiply, and among these new associations stands th...

From Sentimental Education: The History of a Young Man