Madame Bovary: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) - Paperback

by Gustave Flaubert (Author), Lydia Davis (Translator), Lydia Davis (Introduction by)

The award-winning, nationally bestselling translation, by Lydia Davis, of one of the world's most celebrated novels

"The best English version by far, because its deadpan reminds us that the book is both a great realist novel and a satire of realism." --Merve Emre, The New Yorker

Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs in an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, she takes drastic action, with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter. In this landmark new translation of Gustave Flaubert's masterwork, award-winning writer and translator Lydia Davis honors the nuances and particulars of Flaubert's legendary prose style, giving new life in English to the book that redefined the novel as an art form.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author Biography

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was born in Rouen, France, and was brought to popular attention when Madame Bovary was deemed immoral by the French government.

Lydia Davis (translator) is a MacArthur Fellow, National Book Award finalist, and Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters and was awarded the 2011 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and the 2003 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. She lives near Albany, New York.