A Sentimental Education

Sentimental Education: History of a Young Man (French: L'éducation sentimentale : histoire d'un jeune homme) is an 1869 novel by Gustave Flaubert. It focuses on the romantic life of a young man named Frédéric Moreau at the time of the French Revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire. It describes Moreau's love for an older woman, a character based on the wife of the music publisher Maurice Schlesinger, who is portrayed in the book as Jacques Arnoux. The novel's tone is by turns ironic and pessimistic; it occasionally lampoons French society. The main character often gives himself over to romantic flights of fancy. Considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand and Émile Zola, but criticised by Henry James.