Introduction


Gustave Flaubert
Considered among the most influential novelists of the nineteenth century, Flaubert is frequently associated with the realist and naturalist schools of fiction and is best known for his masterpiece Madame Bovary (1857). A meticulous literary craftsman, Flaubert diligently researched his subjects and infused his works with psychological realism with the goal of achieving an objective prose style "as rhythmical as verse and as precise as the language of science." -- Gustave Flaubert Criticism