ISBN Sentimental Education

Sentimental Education

One of the great French novels of the 19th century

Based on Flaubert’s own youthful passion for an older woman, Sentimental Education was described by its author as “the moral history of the men of my generation.” It follows the amorous adventures of Frederic Moreau, a law student who, returning home to Normandy from Paris, notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime. He befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and as their paths cross and re-cross over the years, Mme Arnoux remains the constant, unattainable love of Moreau’s life. Blending love story, historical authenticity, and satire, Sentimental Education is one of the great French novels of the nineteenth century.

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About author(s)
Gustave Flaubert grew up in Rouen, France, and did not leave his birth city until he was 19 when he went to study law in Paris. After three years, however, Flaubert abandoned law and began writing. His first finished work was November, a novella. In September 1849, Flaubert completed the first version of a novel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony. His exploration of themes of spiritual torment was just the beginning of Flaubert’s controversial subject choices. His frank and realistic display of the sex, adultery, and other goings-on in bourgeois France in Madame Bovary saw him go on trial for immorality, charges he only narrowly escaped. He died in 1880.