Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was prosecuted for offending public morals when Madame Bovary was serialised in 1856, and acquitted. He is the patron saint of writers who rewrite: he worked for years on sentences, searching for what he called the one right word. Because his English readers meet him through translators, the famous lines vary considerably between editions — the quotes here name the public-domain translation they come from.