Flaubert: A Biography - Hardcover

Brown, Professor Frederick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316118788 ISBN 13: 9780316118781

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2006

Synopsis

A wonderful publication.

About this title

Review:

[A] massive and authoritative biography.

At last, a biography commensurate with the outsize personality and genius of Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880). Brown, author of an acclaimed biography of Zola, offers a tantalizing, penetrating study that embeds the author of Madame Bovary in his time and place: a tumultuous Paris during the revolution of 1848 and the period of expansion and greed known as the Second Empire...Rich, full of passion and tragedy, overflowing with keenly portrayed characters, this superb biography gives us an unforgettable portrait of a literary master: exuberant yet anxious, brilliant yet full of self-doubt, a man who best savored the women he loved in their absence, an artist who claimed to scorn fame but reveled in it once achieved, who couldn't bear loss but whose life was sadly filled with it.

[A] massive and authoritative biography. -- Andrew Crumley "Scotland on Sunday" (06/04/2006)

An absorbing book. -- Owen Richardson "The Age" (02/02/2008)

[A] superb, full-length portrait..."Flaubert" is a superb biography, not least because it gives us the portrait of a man embedded in his country and his age even as he rebels against its values and mores. Brown is masterly at drawing the background to his subject, social and political, writing with authority and an eye for the telling detail that compel fascination as well as respect.--Caroline Moore"The Spectator" (06/03/2006)

One of the virtues of Frederick Brown's quietly persuasive biography is its careful documentation of Flaubert's always agonized search for a literary idea to match his aesthetic ideals. Another is its sensitivity to the complexities of his artistic personality...[Brown] has put together a judicious work that sticks to the record and relies on expertly chosen passages from Flaubert's brilliant letters and the works of his contemporaries to develop a convincing portrait, brushstroke by brushstroke.--William Grimes"New York Times" (04/12/2006)

Frederick Brown's "Flaubert" is both valuable and fascinating...Brown provides an exemplary biography, brilliantly detailed and exhaustively researched. Particularly impressive is Brown's ability to convey a welter of intriguing facts eloquently and articulately...Equally impressive are Brown's brilliant analyses of particular scenes from the novel. He is a superb literary analyst and critic. His thoroughness, articulateness and critical mastery combine to make this work at once a remarkably informative and brilliantly incisive portrait of a man and his era.--Jamie Spencer"St. Louis Post-Dispatch" (04/23/2006)

A beautifully written book with the kind of commitment to Flaubertian detail that few fiction writers achieve, let alone biographers...[A] delightfully overwhelming biography...[Brown's] lucid histories and deeply detailed psychological construction of a literary giant are deserving of the widest audience.--Brad Quinn"Daily Yomiuri" (07/15/2006)

[A] wonderfully rich and enjoyable book...There have, of course, been biographies of Flaubert before...and, if Frederick Brown's account can add only a small amount to the record, it offers a new richness of context. Showing a positively Flaubertian diligence of research, he has woven his subject into the fustian of his times--literary, social and political. The vicissitudes of French public life from the Revolution of 1848 to the Paris Commune are lucidly laid out.--Matthew Sturgis"Sunday Telegraph" (06/04/2006)

The most immediate effect of Brown's book is an urgent desire to read absolutely everything Flaubert published...Biographers are handmaids in the literary world, and since Brown's book will win Flaubert many new or returning readers, it is, for this reason alone, a resounding success...Brown's biography [is] funny, racy, gossipy and erudite by turns.--Ruth Scurr"Daily Telegraph" (06/03/2006)

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0316118788
• ISBN 13: 9780316118781
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 638