Gustave Flaubert

Brought up on a Normandy farm, convent-educated and an avid reader of sentimental novels, Emma Bovary longs for a life of luxury and high romance. She is married to a well-meaning but mediocre country doctor, but she is far from fulfilled. She seeks to escape her boredom through extravagant spending sprees and, eventually, adultery.

Flaubert's classic tale, in which the title character turns to spending and a series of affairs to combat the boredom of married life and, heartbroken and crippled by debts, takes drastic action that results in tragedy.