Customer Reviews

Madame Bovary (Signet classics)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This particular paperback edition of "Madame Bovary", published in 1964, is particularly notable for including not only the novel itself, but also a very substantial Appendix in the form of speeches from the prosecution and the defense from the 1857 trial for obscenity of the novel, at the time of its publication. The judges' verdict is also included. This Appendix is what locks in the 5th star in this rating.

The Foreword in this Signet Classics edition by Mary McCarthy is quite insightful, as one would expect, making the point that Flaubert wrote the first novel that dealt with "mass culture". However, McCarthy seems to refer to a different translation than the one in this edition, such as when she quotes Charles Bovary blaspheming towards the end "I hate your God!", but which reads in Mildred Marmur's translation as "I detest that God of yours!". McCarthy's more concise quotation of that line seems more in keeping with the brevity of the original line in French "Je l'exècre, votre Dieu!". That aside, Marmur's translation seems quite good, but it is also the only English translation of "Madame Bovary" that I've read.