Œuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert, tome 7: Bouvard et Pécuchet

The study traces the author's upbringing in a provincial family, childhood difficulties with reading, early passion for stories, and a temperament marked by naivety, sedentary habits, and scrupulous honesty. It examines friendships and illnesses that shaped his sensibility, his painstaking approach to composition, and the fraught reception of his breakthrough novel, recounting editorial disputes, legal challenges, and exchanges with contemporaries over publication and revision. The essay combines biographical detail with reflections on the writer's artistic method and private character.