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About Madame Bovary "Without Flaubert there would have been no Marcel Proust in France, no James Joyce in Ireland. Chekhov in Russia would not have been quite Chekhov." -Vladimir Nabokov On "Madame Bovary," the story of one of literature's most famous adulteresses, Gustave Flaubert proclaimed "Madame Bovary, c'est moi, d'apres moi!" -- "Madame Bovary is myself -- drawn from life!" Writing about Emma Bovary, Flaubert brings to life a hopeless romantic who believes that true love should strike with the blinding intensity of a thunderbolt that "plunges the entire heart into an abyss." Unfortunately, she is married to a dull clod of a man. Charles Bovary is a well-respected provincial medical officer, but his very virtues --kindness, patience, and a dogged, unquestioning devotion to his young bride -- soon become loathsome to Emma, who longs for passion, delirium and the ecstasy of a grand passion. Desperate and unhappy, Emma gazes "at the solitude of her life with despairing eyes, seeking some white sail in the far-off haze of the horizon." Taking lovers, Emma finds herself spiraling disastrously into debt, and ultimately doomed to disillusionment. The heedlessness, extravagance and audacity of Emma's rebellion shocked many readers when Madame Bovary was first published in 1856. Flaubert was even prosecuted by the government for the crime of having "outraged public morals and religion" (he was acquitted). It was Flaubert's subtlety and psychological insight that made the struggles of this woman in a dull country town and her tragedy so vivid and disturbing. From The New York Public Library's Vladimir Nabokov archive and its Spencer Collection of illustrated books, the Collector's Edition of Madame Bovary gains a unique perspective on Emma through Nabokov's fascinating handwritten lecture drafts of on "Madame Bovary." Drawings done by Vicomte Alfred de Richemont are taken from a turn-of-the-century French edition of the novel. The cover portrait of Flaubert was done by Nadar (1820-1910), who was one of the foremost satirical cartoonists of his day. You have the option of purchasing your own copies of The New York Public Library Collector's editions of the classic books being discussed, courtesy of Borders Books and Music. Just click on:
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