"Very often I doubt whether I will ever have a line printed. Do you know what would be a beautiful idea for the young man who, until he was fifty years old, had not published anything, and who suddenly made his complete works appear, one day, and did nothing else?" With a level of artistic self-demand such as few authors have shown to have, Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) waited until he was thirty-six to publish Madame Bovary, and, nevertheless, he wanted to deprive his readers of most of his previous short narrative that, without a doubt, is at the height in quality and importance to the rest of his work. Much of the value of this edition of his Complete Tales lies in bringing together for the first time in our language all those works – almost unknown yet. which remained hidden until his death, and which already underlined the genius of the French author. But, as it could not be other...read more