History in the Making: preparation of a genetic edition, dataset and hypertext of Part III, Chapter 1 of Flaubert's L'Education Sentimentale

L’Éducation sentimentale has long been viewed as a novel of major significance in the canon of nineteenth-century fiction. Of particular interest is its depiction of the major historical events of the period in which it is set, the period 1840-51. By far the richest section in the novel from a historical point of view is Part III, Chapter I, which depicts the February Revolution, the political clubs that sprouted in its wake, and the prelude to and aftermath of the June Days. Although the documentary sources upon which much of this chapter is based have been identified by Flaubert scholars, the complex process of transformation as Flaubert selects information and integrates it into his fictional account, is only partially understood. In order to study this process, it is necessary to examine all the largely unpublished documentary and manuscript material relating to the Chapter. This includes the sketches and rough drafts of Part III, Chapter i of L’Éducation sentimentale, approximately 300 folios), the ‘Manuscrit autographe and the ‘Manuscrit du copiste’, and the extensive documentary notes on the events of 1848 in the dossier for Bouvard et Pécuchet. Transcriptions of this material will form an invaluable corpus for any literary scholar or historian seeking to study the transformation of the original material for the novel into the material of the novel. A dataset and genetic edition of the manuscripts will make it possible to explore fundamental issues concerning the complex relationship between historical events, contemporary accounts and fictional representation.