These letters have the same fascination and compelling narrative drive as those in the first volume...We have, in the guise of letters, what comes close to being a full-fledged biography.
   --Howard Moss, Washington Post Book World

[Steegmuller's] ear is so keenly attuned to the modulations of this correspondence and his craft is so accomplished that the English text is, as it were, transparent and trans-vocal. It is the voice of Flaubert we hear or, more precisely, the oral qualities of his epistolary style. Steegmuller plays Flaubert for us the way a musician plays the music of a master.
   --Victor Brombert, American Scholar

Steegmuller's connecting narrative and his annotations make this second volume as rich and attaching as the first. And, for once, Flaubert is seen alive and enacting himself.
   --V. S. Pritchett, The Atlantic

Steegmuller...is again a deft, witty and indefatigable commentator, stitching Flaubert's correspondence together with all the background information we need in order to appreciate it. Among his many fine asides, Mr. Steegmuller tells us that Proust disliked the style of Flaubert's letters even more than that of his novels; that Gide kept his volumes of them beside his bed like a bible.
   --Anatole Broyard, New York Times

Francis Steegmuller is the author of more than twenty books and a recipient of numerous awards and honors. His translation of Madame Bovary is an acknowledged classic. In 1982 the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded him its Gold Medal for Biography.

Read More by Gustave Flaubert:

• The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857, Francis Steegmuller, sel., ed., and tr.

Read More by Francis Steegmuller:

• The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857, Francis Steegmuller, sel., ed., and tr.