Memoirs of a Madman (French: Mémoires d'un fou) is an autobiographical text written by Gustave Flaubert in 1838.
The next year, Flaubert dedicated it to his friend, Alfred Le Poittevin [fr].
The manuscript changed hands twice before being finally published in La Revue Blanche from December 1900 to February 1901, some twenty years after Flaubert's death.
In the sections that deal with the present, the narrator takes a bleak outlook on life, discussing writing, sanity, and death.
There he meets and falls in love with a married woman named Maria (thought to be based on Elisa Schlésinger, who would later influence his Sentimental Education).