Madame Bovary (Vintage Classics)

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Over 150 years since its first publication the power of Madame Bovary remains undiminished. Stunningly translated by Adam Thorpe, this edition brings us closer to Flaubert's original.Weaned on sentimental novels, Emma Bovary longs for a life of luxury and high romance. She is married to a kind but mediocre country doctor and is plagued by expectations of something more, some more intense experience, some wider horizon if she could only find it. She seeks to escape from boredom in extravagant shopping sprees and eventually, adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and so begins her descent into ruin and despair.First published in 1857, Madame Bovary is one of the richest novels ever written; a mille-feuille of nuance, subtlety and psychological acuity. Linguistically meticulous, Thorpe delicately transposes the rhythms of Madame Bovary bringing us closer to Flaubert. This stunningly translated edition of Madame Bovary is destined to become the definitive English translation for our time.

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GUSTAVE FLAUBERT grew up in Rouen and did not leave his birth city until he was nineteen when he went to study law in Paris. After three years, however, Flaubert abandoned law and began writing. His first finished work was November, a novella. In September 1849, Flaubert completed the first version of a novel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony. His exploration of themes of spiritual torment was just the beginning of Flaubert's controversial subject choices. His frank and realistic display of the sex, adultery and other goings-on in bourgeois France in Madame Bovary saw him go on trial for immorality, charges he only narrowly escaped. He died in 1880.ADAM THORPE was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992, and he has written eight others -- most recently The Standing Pool -- two collections of stories and five books of poetry. He lives in France withhis wife and family.