Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives

About Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was born in 1821 and was raised in Rouen France. He moved to Paris in 1840 to study law at the College Royal de Rouen. In 1844 his studies ended because of his deteriorating health; it is suspected that he had epilepsy. His father and sister died in 1846 and he moved to Croisset with his mother and niece. There he occasionally travelled to Paris but spent most of the remainder of his life in Croisset. He produced realism masterpieces such as Madame Bovary A Sentimental Education and Three Tales paying particular attention to precision and detail. At the time of its release Madame Bovary caused public controversy -- Flaubert was charged with promoting immorality but those charges were later dropped. He died of a stroke in 1880. Raymond N. MacKenzie is Professor of English University of St. Thomas. His other works include a translation of Francois Mauriac's Therese Desqueyroux (Rowman & Littlefield 2005) Baudelaire's Paris Spleen and La Fanfarlo (Hackett 2008) and Flaubert's Madame Bovary (Hackett 2009).