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Gustav flober6/4/2023 ![]() Steegmuller’s selection concludes with Flaubert’s standing trial for immoral writing, Madame Bovary’s immediate popular success, and Baudelaire’s celebration of its psychological and literary power. And the letters chronicle one of the central events in literary history-the conception and composition of what has been called the first modern novel, Madame Bovary. We follow Flaubert through his unhappy years at law school, through his tumultuous affair with Louise Colet we share his days and nights amid the temples and brothels of Egypt, then on to Palestine, Turkey, Greece, and Rome. He presents these with an engrossing narrative that places them in the context of the writer’s life and times. ![]() Sensuous, witty, exalted, ironic, grave, analytical, the letters illustrate the artist’s life-and they trumpet his artistic opinions-in an outpouring of uninhibited eloquence.Īn acknowledged master of translation, Francis Steegmuller has given us by far the most generous and varied selection of Flaubert’s letters in English. ![]() Gustave Flaubert wrote to his mistress, Louise Colet: “An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.” In his books, Flaubert sought to observe that principle but in his many impassioned letters he allowed his feelings to overflow, revealing himself in all of his human complexity. ![]()
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