Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary was a seminal work of literary realism by the French writer Gustave Flaubert and is considered one of his most influential novels. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. The novel scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857, and it remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society