BIOGRAPHY:
Gustave Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821 in Rouen. His/her
father Achille Cléophas Flaubert is the surgeon as a
chief of the hotel God. Gustave, forsaken by its family which
places all her hope in her brother elder, grows in a house close
to the hospital where his/her practical father. It carries out
a schooling without claims and obtains its baccalaureat in 1840.
But the passion of the writing devours it already. Since 1837
it regularly publishes texts in the review rouennaise "Hummingbird".
In 1844, after three years of right, it gives up, for health
reasons (epilepsy) to continue its studies and settles in a
villa at the edge of the Seine.
It
is there that it completes its first version of "Sentimental
Education". In 1846, her father then his sister die, Flaubert
is affected, but finds courage and taste with the life by meeting
Louise Collet who will become her mistress.
In 1852, it begins the writing of "Mrs Bovary" whom
it will complete four years and half later, because for Flaubert,
the writing of a novel is a long process which requires an important
documentation. In 1857, following the publication of "Mrs
Bovary" in "the review of Paris", one brings
to him a lawsuit for attack with the moralities: it is discharged.
The publication in 1862 of its historical novel on Carthage,
"Salammbô", is a success. In 1863, it attends
much the Parisian evenings where it meets George Sand. This
meeting will give rise to a long friendship and an abundant
correspondence. From 1864 to 1869, Flaubert writes second "Sentimental
Education" that criticisms ridicule. The book is sold very
badly. In 1872, the death of his/her mother plunges Flaubert
in a great loneliness.
In 1874, it publishes the third version of "the Temptation
Of Saint-Anthony", new work that criticism disapproves.
Associated family financial problems, this failure does not
leave marble Flaubert. On the councils of George Sand, he writes
"Three Tales" in less than two years. He receives
finally the praises of criticism and goes back to work with
even more heat, but leaves his last unfinished novel. Gustave
Flaubert dies on May 8 1880 of a cerebral haemorrhage.
Principal works :
Madame Bovary (1857)
Salammbo (1862)
L'Education sentimentale (1869)
La Tentation de Saint Antoine (1874)
Trois contes (1877)
Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881, publication posthume)
Dictionnaire des idées reçues (1911, publication posthume)
