Gemma Bovery

Posy Simmonds, a celebrated chronicler of English middle-class life, brings her signature wit and observational detail to this single-volume graphic novel from De Harmonie, published in 2005. The book reimagines Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary by transplanting its restless heroine to the French countryside, where a modern-day Gemma Bovery’s romantic entanglements and quiet desperation unfold with tragicomic precision. Simmonds, serving as both writer and artist, uses a blend of prose, watercolor panels, and sharp social commentary to create a work that stands as a clever, poignant homage to literary tradition.