Gustave Flaubert

Born in Rouen, France, in 1821, Gustave Flaubert grew up in a medical household connected to the city hospital, an environment that exposed him early to both science and the details of everyday life. He studied law in Paris for a time but turned away from that path and devoted himself to writing.

Flaubert is most closely associated with literary realism and with a famously rigorous approach to style. He is especially remembered for Madame Bovary (1857), the novel that brought him wide attention and controversy, as well as for later works including Salammbô, Sentimental Education, and Three Tales. His letters also remain important for understanding his ideas about art and craft.

Readers and writers have long admired the care he brought to every sentence. That dedication to finding exactly the right expression helped make him one of the most influential French novelists of the 19th century. He died in 1880, but his work continues to be read as a turning point in the history of fiction.