Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives (Classics) - Softcover

Wall, Geoffrey; Flaubert, Gustave

3.7

334,091 ratings by Goodreads

9780140445268: Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives (Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140445269 ISBN 13: 9780140445268

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1992

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In partnership with the New York Public Library, Doubleday is proud to introduce a very special collector's series of literary masterpieces. Lavishly illustrated with rare archival material from the library's extensive resources, including the renowned Berg collection, these editions will bring the classics to life for a new generation of readers. In addition to original artwork, each volume contains a fascinating selection of unique materials such as handwritten diaries, letters, manuscripts, and notebooks. Simply put, this series presents the work of our most beloved authors in what may well be their most beautiful editions, perfect to own or to give. Published on the occasion of Doubleday's 100th birthday, the New York Public Library Collector's Editions are sure to become an essential part of the modern book lover's private library.Our edition of "Jane Eyre" features illustrations by Ethel Gabain from a 1923 Paris limited edition and an eclectic selection of archival materials including a handwritten letter from the author to her publisher. This volume is a unique celebration of Charlotte Bronte's most famous novel.

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Review:

Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" scandalised French bourgeois society of the time with its shocking depiction of an adulteress, Emma Bovary, and her lascivious liaisons. The 19th-century press denounced both the book and its author as corrupting influences. History has exonerated Flaubert and exposed the hypocrisy of a society that would deny the existence of such women.

Emma Bovary, a young woman, newly married to a provincial doctor, is dazzled when she attends her first ball, attended by high aristocracy. With the culmination of her romantic ideals realised, her head is so filled with fanciful notions that she never re-enters reality, until the damning end:

Before her wedding day, she had thought she was in love; but since she lacked the happiness that should have come from that love, she must have been mistaken, she fancied. And Emma sought to find out exactly what was meant in real life by the words felicity, passion and rapture, which had seemed so fine on the pages of the books.

Frustrated and bored by her marriage, Emma embarks on a brief, rather touching affair with one young man but soon, vulnerable and exposed, she is fitting carrion for Monsieor Rodolphe, a serial womaniser. Soon, Emma has not only ruined her own reputation but destroyed that of her husband in her ruthless bid for wealth and recognition. The cast of characters, from passers-by to the shopkeepers who take her money, act like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Seen through their eyes and their reactions to her, Emma's downfall is recounted but also society's intolerance.

On the surface, Flaubert provides a melodramatic morality tale. Slyly, underneath it all, he is laughing. Through his voyeuristic tale, with each salacious detail recounted, he is wilfully subversive as he points the finger not only at the guilty but at those who would dare to judge. --Nicola Perry

Review:

"Madame Bovary is like the railroad stations erected in its epoch: graceful, even floral, but cast of iron." -- John Updike

-Madame Bovary is like the railroad stations erected in its epoch: graceful, even floral, but cast of iron.- -- John Updike

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