Gustave Flaubert

First published in 1869, this novel offers a meticulously accurate, ironic depiction of uneventful lives in a crucial period of European history. Flaubert combines intricate political and social upheaval with a close scrutiny of individual motives to produce one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters in nineteenth-century New England; a spirited young woman copes with the romantic entanglements of her sisters and her feelings for a brooding gentleman; the wife of a country doctor seeks happiness through romantic affairs and social climbing in nineteenth-century France; a woman abandons her child and husband for a handsome young officer, but soon she believes the officer has grown tired...