Penguin clothbound classics Madame bovary

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored; trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels; she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance; in voracious spending and; eventually; in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and devastating consequences. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine but Flaubert insisted "Madame Bovary; c'est moi." One of the greatest novels of the 19th century; Flaubert's torrid debut lives on in Geoffrey Wall's brilliant translation. This edition features an introduction by Wall; and a preface on Emma Bovary's femininity and modernity by novelist Michèle Roberts.Part of Penguin's beautiful hardcover Clothbound Classics series; designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith; these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality; tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.