Madame Bovary: A Story of Provincial Life (The 100 Greatest Books of All Time)

423, [5] pp. 8vo. Full navy leather, gilt titles and decorations, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, blue ribbon marker bound in. Translated from the French by Francis Steegmuller, with illustrations by Bill Greer. "In Madame Bovary, his story of a shallow, deluded, unfaithful, but consistently compelling woman living in the provinces of nineteenth-century France, Gustave Flaubert invented not only the modern novel but also a modern attitude toward human character and human experience that remains with us to this day. One of the rare works of art that it would be fair to call perfect, Madame Bovary has had an incalculable influence on the literary culture that followed it."