Through Flaubert's work, the modern novel was made possible. In his satirical late work "Bouvard and Pécuchet," two absurdly comical antiheroes enter the stage of the intellectual world. Flaubert's posthumously published satirical picaresque novel "Bouvard and Pécuchet" is, alongside "Madame Bovary," one of the most significant works of the French realist. Even today, the story of the two Parisian office workers provides great reading pleasure: unexpectedly coming into wealth through an inheritance, Bouvard and Pécuchet retreat to the countryside to dedicate themselves to research and the pursuit of knowledge—only to fail spectacularly in everything. Flaubert himself immersed himself so deeply in the material that he created an entire cosmos around the two protagonists. The highly awarded translator Hans-Horst Henschen has worked for decades on the translation and commentary of the three.