Beautiful Emma Rouault yearns for the life of wealth, passion and
romance she has encountered in popular sentimental fiction, and when her
doctor, the well-meaning but awkward and unremarkable Charles Bovary,
begins to pay her attention, she imagines that she may be granted her
wish. However, after their marriage, Emma soon becomes frustrated with
the boredom of provincial life and finds herself seeking escape and
contemplating adultery. As Emma's efforts to make a reality of her
fantasies become more dangerous, both she and those around her must face
the shattering consequences of her actions. Causing widespread scandal
when it was published in 1857, Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's
masterpiece and one of the landmark works of nineteenth-century realist
fiction.