Madame Bovary is one of Europe's most famous pieces of literature causing a huge scandal when first published in 1856 as a serial in La Revue de Paris and then, after being acquitted at a trial, as a book in 1857. Ahead of its time, Madame Bovary shocked its readers when first published, with its candid themes of adultery and betrayal. Emma Bovary is beautiful, bored, wilful and headstrong. Married to a dull doctor in a quiet market town, she longs for passion and excitement. Unwittingly facilitated by her well-meaning husband, she falls into doomed affairs as a means of escape. Flaubert paints an intimate portrait of a woman of her time: oppressed and confined by the stifling provincial world in which she is trapped, denied the freedoms allowed to men, she follows the reckless course of passion to its inevitable end. Rightly considered one of the greatest French novels of the 19th century.

Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style, best exemplified by his endless search for "le mot juste" ("the precise word"). His other books include: The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Salammbô and L'Éducation Sentimentale which took 7 years to write.