Gustave Flaubert wrote to his mistress, Louise Colet: "An author in
his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and
visible nowhere." In his books, Flaubert sought to observe that
principle; but in his many impassioned letters he allowed his
feelings to overflow, revealing himself in all of his human
complexity. Sensuous, witty, exalted, ironic, grave, analytical,
the letters illustrate the artist's life-and they trumpet his
artistic opinions-in an outpouring of uninhibited eloquence. 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. We
follow Flaubert through his unhappy years at law school, through
his tumultuous affair with Louise Colet; we share his days and
nights amid the temples and brothels of Egypt, then on to
Palestine, Turkey, Greece, and Rome. And the letters chronicle one
of the central events in literary history-the conception and
composition of what has been called the first modern novel, Madame
Bovary. Steegmuller's selection concludes with Flaubert's standing
trial for immoral writing, Madame Bovary's immediate popular
success, and Baudelaire's celebration of its psychological and
literary power. Throughout this exposition in Flaubert's own words
of his views on life, literature, and the passions, readers of his
novels will be powerfully reminded of the fertility of his genius,
and delighted by his poetic enthusiasm. "Let us sing to Apollo as
in ancient days," he wrote to Louise Colet, "and breathe deeply of
the fresh cold air of Parnassus; let us strum our guitars and clash
our cymbals and whirl like dervishes in the eternal hubbub of forms
and ideas!" Flaubert's letters are documents of life and art;
lovers of literature and of the literary adventure can rejoice in
this edition.
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