Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert published his novel, Madame Bovary, in serial form in 1856 (first book publication 1857), using it to develop ideas, themes, and techniques already embryonically present in his earlier unpublished writing. He first conceived of it as tracing the destiny of a young Flemish woman leading an uneventful life in the provinces, escaping only through religious mysticism. This original anecdote, whose possibilities Flaubert explored further in his tale, "A Simple Heart," was enriched in the novel by newspaper accounts of the life and death of a Normandy woman married to a health officer, by the diary of ...