Gustave Flaubert, (born December 12, 1821, Rouen, France — died May 8, 1880, Croisset) was a novelist regarded as the prime mover of the realist school of French literature and best known for his masterpiece, Madame Bovary (1857). It is a realistic portrayal of bourgeois life, which led to a trial on charges of the novel’s alleged immorality.