Gustave Flaubert
1821–1880 · French (Rouen) · 19th Century France
Known for: Author of Madame Bovary—the foundational realist novel, master of le mot juste
Gustave Flaubert was obsessive about style—he would spend days searching for le mot juste (the right word), reading sentences aloud to test their rhythm. He lived with his mother in Croisset near Rouen, venturing out rarely. He was tried for obscenity when Madame Bovary was serialized—the acquittal made it a bestseller.
He was a gourmand, a traveler to Egypt and the Near East, and maintained a famous correspondence with George Sand and Louise Colet. He suffered from epilepsy and syphilis. His insistence on objectivity, precision, and style influenced Maupassant, Proust, Joyce, and Nabokov.
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