Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert (1821–80). French novelist and man of letters who is now regarded as one of the great literary artists of the nine-teenth century.

Born in Rouen in 1821, Flaubert was the son of a highly successful provincial doctor. While training somewhat reluctantly to become a lawyer, he experienced the first of a number of nervous attacks that left him exhausted and forced him to abandon his studies. He returned to live at home where he was able to concentrate fully on his writing. Flaubert was so devoted to the perfection of his art that he renounced everything that interfered with his writing, including his love for Mme Louise Colet. After the tragic deaths of his father in late 1845 and his adored younger sister, Caroline, only a few weeks later, Flaubert found himself the head of the family.

Madame Bovary is generally recognized as Flaubert’s masterpiece and was supremely influential on later realist fiction, being a forerunner in some ways for the works of Zola, Chekhov, Joyce, Camus and Sartre.