Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert · Madame Bovary
Assigned by 3 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1857
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- French
- Length
- Long · 330 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendMadame Bovary, translated by Lydia DavisPenguin Classics, 2011Closest to Flaubert's exact, unsentimental sentences, with notes on his revisions.
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Emma, a farmer's daughter raised on convent piety and romantic novels, marries Charles Bovary, a dull country doctor, and finds provincial life unbearable. She takes two lovers, the landowner Rodolphe, who abandons her, and the clerk Léon, and runs up ruinous debts with the draper Lheureux to furnish her fantasies. When the bailiffs come she swallows arsenic. Charles dies of grief and the pharmacist Homais, the voice of progress, receives the Legion of Honour.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Madame Bovary are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
