Madame Bovary

Published in 1857 and immediately prosecuted for obscenity, Madame Bovary follows Emma, a farmer's daughter who marries Charles Bovary, a well-meaning but terminally dull country doctor. Raised on romantic novels that promised passion and adventure, Emma expects her life to match her reading. Reality delivers nothing but provincial tedium.

Gustave Flaubert spent five years writing the novel, agonizing over every sentence in pursuit of le mot juste — the exactly right word. He reportedly said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi" — admitting that her hunger for a life bigger than the one she had was not uniquely feminine but something he felt too.