• The new translation by award-winning translator Margaret Mauldon replaces the slightly old-fashioned one by Gerard Hopkins. Mauldon perfectly captures Flaubert's famously pared-down style to produce a faithful and carefully nuanced translation.
• Respected critic and writer Malcolm Bowie has written a wide-ranging and original new introduction to the novel.
• Updated bibliography.
• Revised notes.
• Madame Bovary consistently appears in lists of the best novels of all time and has been frequently adapted for radio and television.

New to this edition

'Would this misery go on forever? Was there no escape? And yet she was every bit as good as all those other women who led happy lives!'


When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is a dull country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, and begins a devastating spiral into deceit and despair.

Flaubert's novel scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857, and it remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society. In this new translation Margaret Mauldon perfectly captures the tone that makes Flaubert's style so distinct and admired.