Gustave Flaubert

Three Tales is a work by Gustave Flaubert that was originally published in French in 1877. It consists of the short stories "A Simple Heart", "Saint Julian the Hospitalier," and "Hérodias". "Dance of Death" is another story sometimes grouped with "Simple Heart" and "Saint Julian the Hospitalier" as Three Short Works.

Jacques Barzun's masterful translation proves that Flaubert's Dictionary of Accepted Ideas―an acid catalogue of the clichés of 19th-century France―is as relevant today as ever. Throughout his life Flaubert made it a game to eavesdrop for the cliché, the platitude, the borrowed and unquestioned idea with which the …