Born in Rouen in northern France, Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) is regarded as one of the greatest novelists of all time. He is best known for his works Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education, and for his stylistic perfectionism and scrupulous commitment to "le mot juste".

One of Flaubert's earliest writings, but published only after his death, 'Memoirs of a Madman' presents us with a oung man as he reflects - alternating between musings on the present and memories of the past - on the years that have brought him to madness, recalling the innocence of his boyhood, the first stirrings of sexual awakening and his abrupt initiation into the adult world.

No writer that we know of devoted himself with such a fierce and indomitable industry to the art of literature.