This study places the novel, first published in 1830, in the context of its time and highlights the interpretration of the personal and the fictional in Stendhal's writing. The realism of the novel is derived from an incorporation of history and legal reportage.
This is the first book-length study of Flaubert's use of dialogue, an important but neglected component of his fictional texts. Professor Haig's starting point is Sartre's observation that 'Flaubert does not believe that we speak: we are spoken'.