- Gustave Flaubert was a French writer born in 1821 in Rouen, France. - His most famous work, Madame Bovary, published in 1856, is considered a masterpiece of realism and one of the great novels of all time. - The story follows Emma Bovary, the wife of a country doctor, as she seeks to escape the tedium of her life through romantic illusions and extramarital affairs, which ultimately lead to her tragic downfall and death.