Short Fiction

Gustave Flaubert, a titan of French literature, masterfully blurs the lines between Romantic fervor and unflinching Realism in this collection of short fiction. From the precocious theatricality of "The Dance of Death," penned at just 17 and featuring a macabre conversation between Death, Satan, and Nero, to the stark, almost mythic tragedy of "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller"—a tale echoing the fatalistic doom of Oedipus—Flaubert explores the grand and the grotesque. The collection rounds out with "A Simple Soul," a poignant character study of the unassuming servant girl Felicité, and "Herodias," a chillingly visceral retelling of Salome's infamous demand for the head of John the Baptist.