Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; Margaret Cohen (ed.)

Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece of psychological realism, first published in 1856. The novel follows Emma Bovary, a provincial woman whose romantic illusions - shaped by sentimental novels and dreams of passionate love - clash catastrophically with the mundane reality of her marriage to a country doctor. Through meticulous prose and unflinching observation, Flaubert traces Emma's descent into adultery, debt, and desperation as she pursues an impossible ideal of love and beauty.

This edition, edited by Margaret Cohen, provides scholarly context for one of literature's most influential novels. Flaubert's technique revolutionized fiction: his use of free indirect discourse allows readers to inhabit Emma's consciousness while remaining aware of her self-deception. The novel was controversial upon publication - Flaubert faced obscenity charges - yet it established the template for modern literary fiction by treating an ordinary, flawed woman with the same narrative intensity reserved for classical heroes.

The work remains essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of the modern novel, the psychology of desire, and the gap between imagination and reality. Cohen's editorial apparatus helps contemporary readers navigate Flaubert's dense, allusive prose and 19th-century French social contexts.

• Originally published in France, 1856
• Landmark work of psychological realism and modernist technique
• Features scholarly introduction and notes by Margaret Cohen
• Explores themes of romantic disillusionment, class aspiration, and self-destruction
• Influenced generations of novelists across European and American literature

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