Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert
Available as Downloadable audio
Classic literature on audio read by Jenny Agutter
Ahead of its time, Madame Bovary shocked its readers when first published, with its candid themes of adultery and betrayal. Emma Bovary is beautiful, bored, wilful and headstrong. Married to a dull doctor in a quiet market town, she longs for passion and excitement. Unwittingly facilitated by her well-meaning husband, she falls into doomed affairs as a means of escape. Flaubert paints an intimate portrait of a woman of her time: oppressed and confined by the stifling provincial world in which she is trapped, denied the freedoms allowed to men, she follows the reckless course of passion to its inevitable and tragic end. Rightly considered one of the greatest French novels of the 19th century. Read by Jenny Agutter.
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert 1821-1880, was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary.
Jenny Agutter first made her name in the film of The Railway Children (1970) playing the eldest daughter, and subsequently starred as the mother in the television version in 2000. She further enhanced her career in Nicholas Roeg’s critically acclaimed film Walkabout, and has since had an extensive list of film, TV and theatre credits.