<b>Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert</b>&nbsp;<i><b>Madame Bovary,&nbsp;</b></i>originally published as&nbsp;<i><b>Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners</b></i>&nbsp;(French:&nbsp;<i>Madame Bovary: M&oelig;urs de province</i>&nbsp;[madam b?va?i m&oelig;?(s) d? p??v?~s]), is the&nbsp;debut novel&nbsp;of&nbsp;French&nbsp;writer&nbsp;Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.<br /><br />When the novel was first serialized in&nbsp;<i>Revue de Paris</i>&nbsp;between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert&#39;s acquittal on 7 February 1857,&nbsp;<i>Madame Bovary</i>&nbsp;became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes.<br /><br />A seminal work of&nbsp;literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert&#39;s masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history. The British critic&nbsp;James Wood&nbsp;writes: &quot;Flaubert established, for good or ill, what most readers think of as modern realist narration, and his influence is almost too familiar to be visible.&quot;<br /><br /><i>Madame Bovary</i>&nbsp;takes place in provincial Northern France, near the town of&nbsp;Rouen&nbsp;in&nbsp;Normandy. Charles Bovary is a shy, oddly dressed teenager arriving at a new school where his new classmates ridicule him.<br /><br />He struggles his way to a second-rate medical degree, and becomes an&nbsp;<i>Officier de sant&eacute;</i>&nbsp;in the Public Health Service. He marries the woman his mother has chosen for him, the unpleasant but supposedly rich widow H&eacute;lo&iuml;se Dubuc. He sets out to build a practice in the village of&nbsp;T&ocirc;tes.<br />One day, Charles visits a local farm to set the owner&#39;s broken leg and meets his patient&#39;s daughter, Emma Rouault.