Flaubert, Gustave 1821-80
French novelist

Born in Rouen, the son of a doctor, he reluctantly studied law at Paris, where his friendship with Victor Hugo, the writer Maxime du Camp (1822-94), and the poet Louise Colet (1810-76), his lover from 1846 to 1854, stimulated his already apparent talent for writing. As a young man he was afflicted by a nervous disease, which may to some extent account for the morbidity and pessimism which characterize much of his work. This, together with a violent contempt for bourgeois society, is revealed in his best-known novel, Madame Bovary (1857, Eng trans 1881). The book achieved a succ�s de scandale after it had been condemned as immoral and its author prosecuted (unsuccessfully), but it has held its place among the classics. His second work, Salammb� (1862, Eng trans 1886), was followed by L'�ducation sentimentale (1869, Eng trans Sentimental Education, 1896) and La Tentation de St Antoine (1874, Eng trans The Temptation of St Anthony, 1895), a masterpiece of its kind. Trois contes: Un C?ur simple, La L�gende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier, H�rodias (1877, Eng trans Stories, 1903) reveals his mastery of the short story and foreshadows the work of Guy de Maupassant. Bouvard et P�cuchet (1881, Eng trans Bouvard and Pecuchet, 1896) and his correspondence with George Sand (1884) were published posthumously. He brought to the novel a new awareness of form, structure and aesthetic detachment.

Bibliography: E Starkie, Flaubert: the making of the novelist (1967)