小说描写的是一位小资产阶级妇女因为不满意夫妻生活平淡无奇而和别人通奸，最后身败名裂，服毒自杀的故事。这样一个桃色事件，无论在实际生活中，还是在向来的爱情小说里，都是司空见惯的，但是作者的笔触感知到的是旁人尚未涉及的敏感区域，同时很细腻地描写了主人公从纯真到堕落，从堕落到毁灭的前因后果，揭露了资本主义社会残害人性，腐蚀人的灵魂，甚至吞噬人的罪恶本质。

This Norton Critical Edition of Gustave Flaubert's seminal novel represents a signifi-cant revision of its predecessor. The text,Eleanor Marx Aveling's translation as revised by Paul de Man, is accompanied by substantially re- vised and expanded explanatory annotations. Readers glimpse middle-class life in provincial France through twenty-one accompanying visuals, carefully selected from popular pub-lications of the time.

In January 1857 the French government prosecuted Flauberton immorality charges over the publication of Madame Bovary"This Norton Critical Edition is the only English edition in printto include the complete trial transcripts, which have been trans-lated by Bregtie Hartendorf-Wallach and annotated for under-graduate readers. A substantial selection of earlier versions of scenarios and scenes from the novel is included to allow stu-dents to follow Flaubert's struggle toward stylistic perfection.Additional context is provided by Flaubert's letters concerning Madame Bovary.

Sixteen critical essays, twelve of them new to the Second Edi-tion, address the novel's central themes. Among the authors are Charles Baudelaire, Mario Vargas Llosa, Erich Auerbach,Franco Moretti, Dominick LaCapra, Naomi Schor, and Jann Matlock.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

List of Illustrations

Introduction to the Second Edition

The Text of Madame Bovary

 Translator's Note

 Madame Bovary: Provincial Life

Contexts

 Gustave Flaubert · Earlier Versions of Madame Bovary: Scenarios and Scenes

[The Earliest Known Outline]

[The Dance at Vaubyessard--First Outline]

[Projected Epilogue]

[1. Charles's Youth in Rouen]

[2. Charles on His Way to the Bertaux Farm]

[3. Emma at Tostes]

[4. Conversations at Vaubyessard]

[5. Emma and the Colored Window Panes at Vaubyessard]

[6. Leon after His First Encounter with Emma]

[7. Leon and Emma during the Evenings at Homais's House]

[8. Emma after the Departure of Leon]

[9. Emma's Happiness with Rodolphe]

[10. Emma and Rodolphe]

[11. Emma's Mystical Visions during Her Illness]

[12. Leon in the Cathedral]

[13. Emma's Final Reminiscences]

[14. Charles at Emma's Deathbed]

[15. The Final Meeting Between Charles and Rodolphe]

 Gustave Flaubert · Letters about Madame Bovary

To Louise Colet

To Leon Laurent-Pichat

To Madame Maurice Schlesinger

 Madame Bovary on Trial

Translator's Note (Bregtje Hartendorf-Wallach)

The Ministry of Justice against Gustave Flaubert

Critical Reception

 Paul de Man · [Contemporary Critical Reception of Madame Bovary]

 Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve · Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert

 Charles Baudelaire · Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert

 Henry James · [Style and Morality in Madame Bovary]

 Mario Vargas Llosa · From The First Modern Novel

 Erich Auerbach · On the Serious Imitation of the Everyday

 Roland Barthes · The Reality Effect

 Franco Moretti · "The Best Time We Ever Had"

 Stephen Heath · [Provincial Manners in Madame Bovary]

 Dominick LaCapra · From Trial to Text

 Jonathan D. Culler · From Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty

 Richard Terdiman · From Discourse/Counter-Discourse: The Theory and Practice of Symbolic Resistance in Nineteenth-Century France

 Naomi Schor · Restricted Thematics: Madame Bovary

 Jann Matlock · From Censoring the Realist Gaze

 Avital Ronell · From Crack Wars

 Robert Stam · From Madame Bovary Goes to the Movies

Gustave Flaubert: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography