Books by Gustave Flaubert

Flaubert began to write in his early teens, including what he called a "literary journal" called Art and Progress. At the age of 15, he met a woman 10 years older, Elisa Schlesinger, the great love of his life, with whom he had a long semi-platonic romance. He published his first short story in 1837 while still in high school. He studied law without enthusiasm, developed epilepsy, and dropped out of law school to devote his life to writing. In 1846, after the death of his father and his beloved sister Caroline, he lived with his mother outside Rouen. He became involved with Louise Colet, his other great love, to whom he wrote the letters that articulate most of his important literary ideas ("what I would like to write is a book about nothing....The most beautiful works are those in which there is the least matter....Everything we invent is true..."). He began writing MADAME BOVARY in 1851, finishing it in 1856, selling the rights for the equivalent of a mere $8,000. When it was published, Flaubert and the printer were accused of offending public morality, but acquitted. In 1862 he published SALAMMBO, for which he traveled to North Africa to do research. In 1869 he published A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION and in 1874 THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTHONY. By this time Flaubert, after a series of unlucky breaks, was virtually impoverished; the government gave him 3,000 francs a year to live on. He died of a stroke, after which a niece sold the house where Flaubert had lived most of his life. A brewery was built on the site.