Called “the novelist’s novelist” by Henry James, French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) was born on this day in Rouen, the son of a country surgeon.

“The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear,” he celebrated, “when we hope with our music to move the stars.”

As a young man, Flaubert devoured books by Goethe, Voltaire, and Chateaubriand, then studied law before becoming a writer. He is best known for the classic novel Madame Bovary (1857), a passionate story of love and adultery in mid-19th-century France. The book’s notoriety led to his prosecution, and eventual acquittal, on charges of immorality.

“An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere,” he said.

A master of literary realism, Flaubert wrote slowly and deliberately. He spent more than five years shaping Madame Bovary, with painstaking attention to narrative music. “Oh, I’ll certainly have known the tortures of art!” he confessed, choosing the perfect word, the best phrase, the most concise idea.

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work,” he advised. A great friend of George Sand, Flaubert’s work helped inspire the development of the modern novel.

“It is a great thing to write,” he explained, “to be no longer yourself, but to move in an entire universe of your own creation.”