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Literary significance and reception

Long established as one of the greatest novels ever written, the book has often been described as a "perfect" work of fiction. Henry James writes: "Madame Bovary has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone; it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgment."^[2] Giorgio De Chirico said that in his opinion "from the narrative point of view, the most perfect book is Madame Bovary by Flaubert".^[3]