Born in Rouen, the son of a doctor, Flaubert reluctantly studied law at Paris where his friendship with Victor Hugo and the poet Louise Colet, his lover from 1846 to 1854, stimulated his already apparent talent for writing. As a young man he was afflicted by a nervous disease, which may to some extent account for the morbidity and pessimism which characterise much of his work. This, together with a violent contempt for bourgeois society is revealed in his best-known novel Madame Bovary. The book caused a scandal when it was condemned as immoral and its author prosecuted unsuccessfully, but it is now justifiably regarded and loved as a classic and timeless novel.
