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A captivating and evocative work, and one of Flaubert’s earliest writings,
Memoirs of a Madman forms the basis of his masterpiece,
L’ Education Sentimentale. As a young man looks back on the years that have brought him to “madness,” he recalls the innocence of his boyhood and his fond belief that he was blessed with a mind of genius. Yet, painfully, wretchedly, he also recounts his all–too–sudden entry into the adult world. For the day that he caught sight of a beautiful woman by the sea marked the end of his flamboyant philosophizing and the beginning of his tragic coming of age. Foreword by Germaine Greer.
