Temptation of St. Anthony

A hermit in the Egyptian desert is visited in one night by every heresy, god and appetite that ever tempted anyone, in a procession Flaubert worked at for thirty years. He read the first version aloud to two friends for four days; they told him to burn it. He rewrote it twice and published it anyway. Six plates, from Bosch to Munch, show the same haunted, solitary night the novel does, its trees, wayfarers and quarrels rendered in full colour.