Works - 1904 Author:Gustave Flaubert Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE In 1849 Flaubert, accompanied by his close friend and ardent admirer, Maxime Ducamp, set out for a lengthened tour in the East. That they might enjoy ... more »every facility for their expedition, Ducamp succeeded in obtaining governmental missions of a nominal nature for himself and his companion, Flaubert's charge being the collection of any information that might be thought suitable for communication to the Chambers of Commerce. The two friends journeyed through Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, Syria, and Rhodes, and so home through Asia Minor, Turkey in Europe, and Greece. During all the earlier portions of their travels, and in spite of the eagerness with which he had anticipated them, Flaubert displayed only listlessness and lack of curiosity, though, strange to say, the scenes which at that time impressed him so slightly came back to him afterwards with great vividness, and were of infinite service to him when writing Salammbd. On arriving in Greece, however, and finding himself surrounded by those historic scenes with which books had made him so familiar, a change came. His enthusiasm was kindled; he began to make notes; he resolved to write the tale of Thermopylae; (Ixiii) he laughed at difficulty and hardship, and flung himself, with all the ardour of which his nature was capable, into the enjoyment of the hour. It was a time which dwelt long in his memory; a gleam of light falling across his darkened life, to which in after days he was wont to look back with lingering regret. On his return to France in 1851 Flaubert resumed his former life at Croisset, a house which had belonged to his father, near Rouen. Here for the most part he lived, working, feeling, remembering, distrusting, until 1857, when his first published work, (Madame Bovary, made its appearance in the colum...« less