When Emma marries the country doctor Charles Bovary, she dreams of love, luxury, and passion, of a life like the one she knows from her novels. However, everyday life in the provinces is very different from what she had hoped. In her quest to fulfill her desires, she allows herself to be seduced, setting off a devastating spiral of betrayal and despair. Gustave Flaubert's novel about infidelity brought a charge of violating public morality. Although the court acquitted the author, it particularly criticized the shocking realism evident in the erotically charged and psychologically sharp portrayal of Emma Bovary. Includes a concise biography of the author.