Gustave Flaubert - Bouvard and Pecuchet, H S Nichols, 1896, First Edition

Gustave Flaubert - Bouvard and Pecuchet, H S Nichols, 1896, First Edition

Bouvard and Pécuchet (Bouvard et Pécuchet) was published posthumously in France in 1881, following Flaubert's sudden death in 1880. The narrative follows two middle-aged Paris copy clerks who strike up a deep friendship, inherit a fortune, and retire to the Normandy countryside to dedicate their lives to universal knowledge. As they try to master agriculture, chemistry, medicine, geology, and philosophy through books alone, every single experiment ends in comic, disastrous failure. Flaubert intended the book to be a staggering farce attacking the intellectual vanity and bourgeois platitudes of the 19th century.  Satirical masterpiece.  First published in English 1896.

Blue cloth gilt in good condition.  Pictorial gilt spine with bumped ends.  Gilt top page edges. Foxing to page edges.  Text firm and clean.

Weight    790g.   Pages    458.