Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
Translated from the French by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
(1857)

A novel about the dangers of reading novels.

Emma Bovary reads romantic fiction and, as a result, develops completely unrealistic ideas about life. Neither love, marriage, adultery nor religion can live up to her romantic ideals.
In consequence, she ruins her own life and that of her husband and child.

It is not surprising that Karl Marx’s daughter chose to translate this novel. It clearly illustrates the concepts of false consciousness and commodity fetishism.

I have restored accents, added a TOC and a picture.