

He sets out to build a practice in the village of Tôtes. He marries the woman his mother has chosen for him, the unpleasant but supposedly rich widow Héloïse Dubuc. He struggles his way to a second-rate medical degree, and becomes an Officier de santé in the Public Health Service. Charles Bovary is a shy, oddly dressed teenager arriving at a new school where his new classmates ridicule him. Madame Bovary takes place in provincial Northern France, near the town of Rouen in Normandy. (Illustration without text on page 322: Emma in male costume at the ball)

Plot synopsis Illustration by Charles Léandre Madame Bovary, engraved by Eugène Decisy. A seminal work of literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history. After Flaubert's acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. When the novel was first serialized in Revue de Paris between 1 October and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Madame Bovary ( / ˈ b oʊ v ə r i/ French: ), originally published as Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners ( French: Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province ), is a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856.

Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners at Wikisource Madame Bovary: Mœurs de province at French Wikisource
