"Charles Vincent seems to have it all a beautiful wife, two successful children, and a well-paying career. Yet happiness remains out of reach. He is trapped in a loveless marriage and his job is simply a paycheck. But his life changes forever one night as he drives along the Normandy coast, heading to their lavish château for the weekend. In one terrifying moment, Charles falls asleep at the wheel and veers off the road, plunging thirty feet down...

Emma Bovary, the bored wife of a French provincial doctor, scans her solitude with desperate eyes, like a shipwrecked sailor searching for a white sail on the distant horizon. And when Emma's ship finally comes in, it carries with it vast and tragic consequences upon which her own life and the lives of those around her are wrecked. This new translation by Francis Steegmuller was published as a part of the centenary celebration of the original publishing...

Pierre Hardelot breaks off his engagement to a wealthy heiress to marry Agnes Florent, the daughter of the local brewer, setting off a family feud which lasts for thirty years, as their village is first destroyed by World War I and then threatened again with the coming of World War II