The desert and the dancing girls

Every book tells a story . . . And the 70 titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth and quality that formed part of the original Penguin vision in 1935 and that continue to define our publishing today. Together, they tell one version of the unique story of Penguin Books. Gustave Flaubert transformed French literature and caused an outcry when his novel Madame Bovary, portraying a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage, was published in 1857. Combining letters to his mother and friends with personal notes, this volume reconstructs Flaubert's formative journey to Egypt as a young man, beautifully portraying his sense of wonder and decadent surrender to the sensual delights of nineteenth-century Cairo.