14/03/2008

Gustav Flaubert’s last letters

 Julian Barnes in TLS
The instrument case of Eugène Delamare, a health officer based in the Normandy village of Ry in the 1840s, was doubtless of standard issue: so was Delamare himself. An inept if conscientious fellow, he failed his medical exams, and only attained his modest professional status through the benign intervention of the Rouen [...]