Guy Riegert Books

Complex psychological portrait of one woman's relentless search for the rapture of being alive. Emma Bovary, one of literature's first modern heroines, seeks escape in disastrous affairs. Flaubert, who brought watchmaker-like craftsmanship to writing, spent five years on this masterpiece.

This is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. It is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for money. The detailed descriptions of both affluence and squalor in the Paris of 1819 are an integral part of the drama played out by a wide range of characters, including the sinister but fascinating Vautrin. Unquestionably one of Balzac's finest novels, Pére Goriot still has the power to move the modern reader.