Autograph Letter Signed
Gustave Flaubert
Paris, 1857
 
A deep letter from February 11th regarding the publication troubles of his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. 
 
One sheet, three pages. Creasing, foxing mostly at the lower margins - Very Good with a strong ink impression.
 
The recipient is Edmond Pagnerre, a close childhood friend and journalist who publicly supported the novel. The translated text is as follows:
 
My dear old friend,
 
If I haven’t replied sooner to your congratulations, it is because I spent several days so utterly shattered by the political upheaval I’ve been through that I couldn't lift a finger. I am flattened, bewildered—and terrified about my future books. What sort of book could I possibly write that would be more harmless than my poor novel?
 
I am even hesitating to bring it out in book form. For I want to restore the passages cut by the *Revue de Paris*—passages which, to my mind, are perfectly innocuous. Yet the cuts they made were idiotic, resulting in salacious overtones that were never part of the work itself.
 
The Public Prosecutor still has two months to lodge an appeal. Could you find out for certain from Abbatucci whether he intends to do so? Should I wait out the two months? How am I regarded? Who bears me a grudge? I shall end up, like Rousseau, believing in a "Holbachian conspiracy." For everyone I met face-to-face was full of goodwill, yet beneath the surface lay an incomprehensible vindictiveness.
 
On the other hand, Lévy is hounding me to publish. I don’t know what to do.
 
People are advising me to excise a few of the passages singled out by the prosecution. But that is impossible for me. I will not insert absurdities just to please the authorities—not to mention that the whole procedure strikes me as utter bullshit, if one may put it that way.
 
Such is the sorry plight to which your unfortunate friend is reduced. Remember, I am expecting you for dinner one of these days, here on the Boulevard du Crime. In the meantime, a thousand warm handshakes.
 
Yours,
Gve Flaubert
 
An important artifact from a vital time in the legendary writer’s life.
 
 
Ref: Gustave Flaubert Archive, Université de Rouen Normandie