{"product_id":"the-letters-of-gustave-flaubert-9781681377162","title":"The Letters of Gustave Flaubert","description":"\u003cb\u003eAppearing in a single volume for the very first time, an illuminating and enrichingly annotated selection of correspondence from one of Western literature's most revered writers.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFlaubert was not only a great novelist, one of the inventors of of the modern novel, but a great letter writer, writing letters that are among other things a remarkable exploration of the art of the novel. \u003ci\u003eThe Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1880\u003c\/i\u003e is Francis Steegmuller's extensive selection from the writer's correspondence, to which he adds deft biographical bridgework and agile annotation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"If there is one article of faith that dominates the Credo of Gustave Flaubert's correspondence,\" Steegmuller's introduction begins, \"it is that the function of art is not to provide 'answers, '\" and \u003ci\u003eThe Letters of Gustave Flaubert\u003c\/i\u003e is above all a record of the intransigent questions, personal, political, artistic, with which Flaubert struggled throughout his life. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHere we have Flaubert's youthful, sensual outpourings to his mistress, the poet Louise Colet, and, as he advances, still unknown, into his thirties, his wrestle to write \u003ci\u003eMadame Bovary\u003c\/i\u003e. (Looking back on his early work, he writes, \"How I congratulate myself on the prescience I had not to publish!\") \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHere we have Flaubert's correspondence with family and friends describing his life-changing trip to Egypt, exchanges with Baudelaire, the influential critic Sainte-Beuve, and Guy de Maupassant, his young protege, as well as the letters that went back and forth between him and the great confidante of his later life, George Sand. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSteegmuller's book, recognized as a classic in its own right, is both a splendid life story of Flaubert in his own words and the ars poetica of a master. Originally issued in two volumes, the book appears here for the first time under a single cover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/26\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781681377162\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 720\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.81lbs","brand":"Gustave Flaubert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43067727708341,"sku":"9781681377162","price":21.21,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_0b73836e-0e68-4c6b-bb7e-9a243de5fc3e.jpg?v=1690864124","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/the-letters-of-gustave-flaubert-9781681377162","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}