Short Fiction

Gustave Flaubert was an influential novelist who had both the characteristics of a romanticist and a realist. The short stories in this collection put that dichotomy on display. Flaubert wrote the first story, "The Dance of Death" when he was only 17 years old. It is written in a play format-though sometimes referred to as a prose poem-and features a conversation between Death, Satan and Nero. "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller" is a story about Julian the Hospitaller, a man who shares some similarities with Oedipus; "A Simple Soul" tells the story of a servant girl named Felicité; and lastly "Herodias" retells the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Perfect for readers who appreciate the masterful craftsmanship of 19th-century French literature, this collection showcases Flaubert's remarkable evolution from youthful romanticism to mature realism. Experience the full range of one of France's greatest literary voices, from his haunting early work "The Dance of Death" to the exquisite prose and psychological depth that made him a cornerstone of modern fiction. The source for this public-domain ebook is Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org). Ebooks from other sources often have typos, inconsistent spelling, missing accent marks, and missing punctuation. Ebooks from Standard Ebooks are proofread line by line against a scan of the original printed pages, then proofread again from cover to cover. They are also formatted and typeset following a professional-grade style manual, resulting in new editions supporting state-of-the-art ereader technology: automatic hyphenation, popup footnotes, complete and consistent metadata, high-resolution and scalable vector graphics, and ereader-compatible tables of contents. All of this makes the finished ebooks accurate, functional, and beautiful, a pleasure to read. (Waking Lion Press is not affiliated with or endorsed by Standard Ebooks.)