sentimental Education, history of an young man is a Romance written by Gustave Flaubert, and published in 1869. The heart of the account is drawn from the novel of Holy-Beuve: Volupté , that Honore de Balzac already had dealt and with certain manner rewritten with the Lily in the valley . The novel of Flaubert takes again the same subject. according to entirely new narrative rules, reinventing the Romance training to give him a depth and an acuity ever reached, it became since Proust a book of reference for the novelists of the 20th century, in spite of a negative criticism at the time of its publication.

The novel, written starting from September 1864 and completed on May 16th, 1869 in the morning, comprises many autobiographical elements (the such meeting of Mrs Arnoux, inspired by the meeting of Flaubert with Élisa Schlésinger). It has as a main character Frederic Moreau, young person provincial eighteen years coming to make its studies with Paris. Of 1840 with 1851, this one will know the indéfectible friendship and the force of the silly thing, art, the policy, the revolutions of a world which hesitates between the Monarchie, the République and the Empire. Several women Mrs. Dambreuse cross her existence, but none can be compared with Marie Arnoux, wife of a commercial rich person of art, with which it is passionately in love. It is in contact with this inactive passion and of the contingencies of the world that the weather will be its sentimental education, which will be essentially summarized to burn, little by little, its illusions. With this novel, model of the Realism of which he is the inspirer, Flaubert depicts with accuracy at the same time the individual and the company. The revolutions of the world and those of the heart are actuated by only one movement, and the history is registered until in the actions and thoughts of the characters.

Flaubert had written, of January 1843 to January 1845, a first sentimental Éducation which succeeded the reaction of November, completed the October 25th 1842.