10 DEBUT NOVELS THAT ARE ALSO THEIR AUTHORS' MASTERPIECES

One hundred and sixty years ago today, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary was published for the first time as a single volume—it had been serialized the year before in La Revue de Paris from October through December—and it quickly became a bestseller. Obscenity trials will do that for you! Also luminous, genre-creating novels, of course. I suppose. Though Flaubert would go on to write several more books, including the well-regarded Sentimental Education, he would never top his initial effort—Madame Bovary is universally acknowledged as Flaubert's masterpiece, and indeed as one of the greatest novels ever written.