In 1849 at the age of twenty-seven, Gustave Flaubert set off for the Orient in the company of his friend Maxime Du Camp. There was no precise itinerary; the idea was to get to know the customs and the great religions of the East. The mainstay of the journey unfolded in Egypt, where Napoleon’s army had fought half a century before. The writer thus transcribed impressions from his journey in a notebook, while Du Camp concentrated on photography. Yet the finest material emerges from his correspondence: the letters to his mother and to his friend Louis Bouilhet are full of life, anecdotes, tales, descriptions and reflections. There is no experience the writer shies away from, and thus Egypt comes to life in all its immediacy, the exotic dimension blending with the everyday. This edition, the most complete to appear in Italy to date, provides the reader with a book on a par with the masterpieces of the French writer.