Gustave Flaubert Short Fiction M. Walter Dunne

Gustave Flaubert was 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 Felicité; and lastly “Herodias” retells the beheading of St. John the Baptist.