Sentimental Education

Sentimental Education

Title page from the first edition of L'Education sentimentale
Author	Gustave Flaubert
Original title	L'Education sentimentale
Country	France
Language	French
Genre	Realism
Set in	Paris and Normandy, 1837–1867
Publication date	1869
ISBN	9781471727740
Dewey Decimal	843.8
LC Class	PQ2246 .E4
Preceded by	Salammbô
Followed by	The Temptation of Saint Anthony
Original text	L'Education sentimentale at French Wikisource

Sentimental Education (French: L'Éducation sentimentale, 1869) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert. The story focuses on the romantic life of a young man named Frédéric Moreau at the time of the French Revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire. It describes Moreau's love for an older woman based on the wife of the music publisher Maurice Schlesinger, who is portrayed in the book as Jacques Arnoux. The novel's tone is by turns ironic and pessimistic; it occasionally lampoons French society. The main character often gives himself over to romantic flights of fancy.

Considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand^[1] and Émile Zola,^[2] but criticised by Henry James.^[3]