GUSTAVE Flaubert, creator of one of the most famous - and infamous - women in literature, was in many respects a disagreeable man.

Big in build, he was physically unattractive, suffered from epilepsy, often had ugly boils on his face and body, he contracted syphilis and had bad bouts of depression. He was loud and often foul mouthed, wrote obscene private letters, was self-centred, self-opinionated and his most of his relationships turned sour.

His strange love affair with the vain Louise Colet supplied him with much of the material for his most famous novel, Madame Bovary, but he stated privately: "If I was a woman I certainly wouldn't want me for a lover."

Geoffrey Wall's new biography of Flaubert is an unexpurgated portrait - warts, sexual organs and all. Wall reveals his subject's mind brilliantly with skilfully used extracts from journals and letters.

If any author truly suffered in the cause of his art it was Flaubert. For him, Art was paramount. He agonised over every phrase - it is said that he wrote at the rate of five words an hour - as he sought perfection in his quest to reveal society as he saw it.

So shocked were the authorities when Madame Bovary was published that Flaubert was prosecuted for immorality but was acquitted.

Wall brings to life the origins, development and tortuous years of composition of all Flaubert's novels. There are revealing studies of Flaubert's influential father and the great author's circle of literary and social friends. In his constant struggle to expose what he saw as the evils of the bourgeoisie Flaubert was at war with himself as much as with society.

This biography demonstrates how, in order to fully understand and appreciate Flaubert's work, it is essential to know about the man and all that influenced him.