Sentimental Education, by
Gustave Flaubert, is part of the
Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the
student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of
Barnes & Noble
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superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and
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Considered one of the greatest French novels of the nineteenth century,
Sentimental Education blends brilliantly realized details of a tumultuous time and place with the intimate story
of a lifelong romantic obsession, one that closely mirrors the central passion of
Flaubert’s own life.
Set amid the violent social upheaval of the Revolution of 1848, the novel tells of young Frédéric Moreau’s idealistic attraction to a married woman some years his senior. Smitten by his first
sight of Madame Arnoux, Frédéric idolizes her for many years, despite her refusal to encourage him and his own indecision. He befriends her husband, an art dealer, in order to be near her, and
soon finds himself drawn first into Jacques Arnoux’s heady social circle and then into his disastrous financial speculations.
As a young teenager, Flaubert himself became romantically obsessed with a married woman with whom he kept in touch for the rest of his life, and many of the characters in Sentimental Education,
including Madame Arnoux, are based on friends and acquaintances of the great French author. In this vivid novel, all are beset by financial difficulties, ideological conflicts, and friendship
betrayed as their lives are changed forever by the revolution.
Claudie Bernard is Professor of French literature at New York University, and the author of
Le Chouan Romanesque, Balzac, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Hugo, Le Passé recomposé, le roman
historique français au dix-neuvième siècle, and of many essays on nineteenth-century French literature and the history of ideas.
