Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Due to an unavoidable change of venue, the numbers for this event are capped at 12. Please only RSVP if you genuinely think you will attend the event. The meetup location will be confirmed closer to the time. It will be central Edinburgh. 'A masterpiece' Julian Barnes Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of a married woman's affair caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. Its heroine, Emma Bovary, is stifled by provincial life as the wife of a doctor. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and when real life continues to fail to live up to her romantic expectations, the consequences are devastating. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi.'