Near Perfect Condition, Leather Bound. Book accented in 22kt gold. Printed on archival paper with gilded edges. The endsheets are of moire fabric with a silk ribbon page marker. Smyth sewing and concealed muslin joints to ensure the highest quality binding

From the Publisher's Preface

Gustave Flaubert had made many unsuccessful attempts at writing fiction, but the first book that he completed for publication was 'Madame Bovary', on which he began the actual writing at the age of thirty and which he finished after more than four years of hard work. His greatest achievement, it was the center of discussion on the art of the novel for decades; it is still considered one of the crowning works in the development of that genre. The flawless style of 'Madame Bovary' is the product of possibly the most painstaking writer in all literature.

Emma Bovary is the young wife of a small-town physician. The novel is an absorbing and moving account of her pathetic dreams of romantic love, her ceaseless longings, and her inevitable downfall. Flaubert himself recognized that his heroine was in many ways a portrait of his own psyche. As F. C. Green of the University of Edinburgh remarks, the author was "a man haunted by apocalyptic visions of beauty, to which he dared not abandon himself lest he compromise his austere ideal of artistic perfection."