![Cover image for Memoirs of a madman / Gustave Flaubert ; translated by Andrew Brown ; [foreword by Germaine Greer].](https://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&client=halan&upc=&oclc=49736730&isbn=9781843910008&issn=/LC.JPG "Cover image for Memoirs of a madman / Gustave Flaubert ; translated by Andrew Brown ; [foreword by Germaine Greer].")
Available:*
Library | Audience | Home Location | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Central | Adult | Open Stacks Fiction | Open Stacks book | FLAUB | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
A captivating and evocative work, Memoirs of a Madman is one of Flaubert's earliest writings, and forms the basis for his highly renowned L'Education Sentimentale. As a young man looks back on the years that have brought him to "madness," he recalls the innocence of his boyhood and his fond belief that he was blessed with a mind of genius. Yet, painfully, wretchedly, he also recounts his all-too-sudden entry into the adult world. For the day he caught sight of a beautiful woman by the sea marked the end of his flamboyant philosophizing, and the beginning of a tragic coming of age.
Author Notes
Born in the town of Rouen, in northern France, in 1821, Gustave Flaubert was sent to study law in Paris at the age of 18. After only three years, his career was interrupted and he retired to live with his widowed mother in their family home at Croisset, on the banks of the Seine River. Supported by a private income, he devoted himself to his writing.
Flaubert traveled with writer Maxime du Camp from November 1849 to April 1851 to North Africa, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. When he returned he began Madame Bovary, which appeared first in the Revue in 1856 and in book form the next year. The realistic depiction of adultery was condemned as immoral and Flaubert was prosecuted, but escaped conviction.
Other major works include Salammbo (1862), Sentimental Education (1869), and The Temptation of Saint Antony (1874). His long novel Bouvard et Pecuchet was unfinished at his death in 1880. After his death, Flaubert's fame and reputation grew steadily, strengthened by the publication of his unfinished novel in 1881 and the many volumes of his correspondence.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Kirkus Review
This very early work, written when Flaubert was an adolescent but published only long after his death (in 1900), records the amatory and intellectual effusions of a lovestruck youth whose "madness" is really only romantic hyperbole. In its rhapsodies about childhood, schooling, travel, and especially the images of unattainable idealized females, we see glimmering intimations of both Flaubert's sardonic BildÜngsroman Sentimental Education and his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. But these Memoirs are unmemorable--unlike the brief 1837 story "Bibliomania" that follows them. It's a deftly plotted, precociously urbane parable of obsession, somewhat reminiscent of (of all things) early Edgar Allan Poe. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Table of Contents
| Foreword | p. vii |
| Introduction | p. xiii |
| Memoirs of a Madman | p. 1 |
| Bibliomania | p. 73 |
| Notes | p. 93 |
| Biographical note | p. 95 |
