Gustave Flaubert (12 December 1821 - 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a prot�g� of Flaubert. Gustave Flaubert was also an influential novelist who had both the characteristics of a romanticist and a realist. The short stories in this collection put that dichotomy on display. Flaubert wrote the first story, "The Dance of Death" when he was only 17 years old. It is written in a play format-though sometimes referred to as a prose poem-and features a conversation between Death, Satan and Nero. "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller" is a story about Julian the Hospitaller, a man who shares some similarities with Oedipus; "A Simple Soul" tells the story of a servant girl named Felicit�; and lastly "Herodias" retells the beheading of St. John the Baptist.
