Madame Bovary is perhaps the first 'modern' novel.  It has always been the most popular of Flaubert's books, and the character of Emma Bovary, a beautiful young woman longing to escape from her dull husband and the constrictions of ...

Flaubert's portrait of an adulteress who seeks freedom from a prosaic, disappointing life and ultimately is destroyed by her selfishness was considered scandalous when it was published. Flaubert chose his subject to illustrate his bel...