Gustave Flaubert As Seen In His Works And Correspondence

Excerpt from Gustave Flaubert as Seen in His Works and Correspondence My aim in the following pages has been to place the personality of Gustave Flaubert vividly before my readers. It was through his letters, rather than through his works, that I became interested in him, and my original intention was to make a volume of translations of selected letters; so that others might be impressed in the same way as myself. I found, however, that without continual references to his works, not all of which are translated into English, his letters would be unintelligible, and so gradually the book assumed its present form. I have done my best to avoid mere gossip about his private life, holding with him that an artist's privacy should be respected; and esteeming this to be, above all, a sound maxim, when so many personal acquaintances are still alive, as in the present case. Thus I did not look for facts which have not already appeared in print. My chief authorities are the author's own works and letters; but I have made use of the introduction written by Madame Commanville to the first volume of her uncle's letters; also of the critical and personal notice written by Guy de Maupassant, and printed with the volume of letters addressed to George Sand. I am indebted to Madame Commanville for permission to make use of these documents. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Spanning Flaubert's life from adolescence to his years of fame as a writer, this collection of letters is a compelling portrait of the artist. Letters to Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Turgenev, Zola, and Maupassant offer glimpses into 19th-century literary life; those to George Sand bring to light a deep, abiding friendship; and correspondence between Flaubert and his lover, Louise Colet, are highly charged with the emotions of an illicit relationship.

An acknowledged master of translation, Francis Steegmuller has given us by far the most generous and varied selection of Flaubert's letters in English. He presents these with an engrossing narrative that places them in the context of the writer's life and times.