The text of Madame Bovary is here offered in a substantially new translation especially prepared by the editor. He has informed his work by researches into the definitive French editions of the novel; the translation is based on the version by Eleanor Marx Aveling.

To enable students to follow the progress of Flaubert's struggle toward stylistic perfection, the editor has brought together and translated for the first time into English a substantial selection of Flaubert's scenarios and earlier versions, together with commentaries on them. He also offers articles and materials on the biographical sources.

The essays in criticism have been selected to introduce students to the problems of method important in the contemporary criticism of fiction, for Madame Bovary was a starting point for many of these techniques. The important critics represented are: Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Charles Baudelaird, Henry James, Percy Lubbock, W. Von Wartburt, Charles du Bos, Albert Thibaudet, Erich Auerbach, Georges Poulet, Harry Levin, Jean-Pierre Richard, and Jean Rousset. Critics among these whose essays appear for the first time in translation are: Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire, du Bos, Thibaudet, Richard, and Rousset.
(back cover)