The Best Translation of Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary was written in French. 3 recommended editions, ranked — with Gröblé’s verdict on which to read first.
Lydia Davis
Penguin Classics · 2010 · 384 pages
Davis is one of the most exacting prose stylists alive in English, and Flaubert is the novelist who agonized over every comma. The result is the rare Bovary where the famous flat surface in French stays flat in English.
Every recommended edition, compared
Karl Marx's daughter translated this in 1886, and her Victorian English reads with a strange intimacy. More formal than Davis, but the empathy for Emma is unmistakable and still moves.
Mauldon's Oxford keeps the precision Davis is known for but softens the temperature a few degrees. The notes are useful, and the prose is easier to live inside for 300 pages if Davis feels clinical.
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Reading Madame Bovary in translation
Madame Bovary was written in French, so unless you read French, the translator decides the book you actually experience — its register, its pace, how it sounds read aloud. Two editions of the same work can feel like different books.
The ranking above is Gröblé’s: one reader’s verdict on which English gets you closest, not a publisher’s blurb. Start with the top pick; reach for the others when you want a different angle on the original.