Unjustly deported to Devil's Island following Louis-Napoleon's coup-d'état in December 1851, Florent Quenu escapes and returns to Paris. He finds the city changed beyond recognition. The old Marché des Innocents has been knocked down as part of Haussmann's grand program of urban reconstruction, replaced by Les Halles, the spectacular new food markets. Disgusted by a bourgeois society whose devotion to food is inseparable from its devotion to the Government, Florent attempts an insurrection. Les Halles, apocalyptic and destructive, play an active role in Zola's picture of a world in which food and the injustice of society are inextricably linked.

This is the first English translation in fifty years of Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris). The third in Zola's great cycle, Les Rougon-Macquart, it is as enthralling as Germinal, Thérèse Raquin, and the other novels in the series. Its focus on the great Paris food hall, Les Halles--combined with Zola's famous impressionist descriptions of food--make this a particularly memorable novel. Brian Nelson's lively translation captures the spirit of Zola's world and his Introduction illuminates the use of food in the novel to represent social class, social attitudes, political conflicts, and other aspect of the culture of the time. The bibliography and notes ensure that this is the most critically up-to-date edition of the novel in print.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The penultimate novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, La Debacle (1892) takes as its subject the dramatic events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1. During Zola's lifetime it was the bestselling of all his novels, praised by contemporaries for its epic sweep as well as for its attention to historical detail.

La Debacle seeks to explain why the Second Empire ended in a crushing military defeat and revolutionary violence. It focuses on ordinary soldiers, showing their bravery and suffering in the midst of circumstances they cannot control, and includes some of the most powerful description Zola ever wrote. Zola skilfully integrates his narrative of events and the fictional lives of his characters to provide the finest account of this tragic chapter in the history of France. Often compared to War and Peace, La Debacle has been described as a seminal work for all modern depictions of war.

Helene Grandjean, an attractive young widow, lives a secluded life in Paris with her only child, Jeanne. Jeanne is a delicate and nervous girl who jealously guards her mother's affections. When Jeanne falls ill, she is attended by Dr Deberle, whose growing admiration for Helene gradually turns into mutual passion. Deberle's wife Juliette, meanwhile, flirts with a shallow admirer, and Helene, intent on preventing her adultery, precipitates a crisis whose consequences are far-reaching. Jeanne realizes she has a rival for Helene's devotion in the doctor, and begins to exercise a tyrannous hold over her mother.

The eighth novel in Zola's celebrated Rougon-Macquart series, A Love Story is an intense psychological and nuanced portrayal of love's different guises. Zola's study extends most notably to the city of Paris itself, whose shifting moods reflect Helene's emotional turmoil in passages of extraordinary lyrical description.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Orphaned with a substantial inheritance at the age of ten, Pauline Quenu is taken from Paris to live with her relatives, Monsieur and Madame Chanteau and their son Lazare, in the village of Bonneville on the wild Normandy coast. Her presence enlivens the household and Pauline is the only one who can ease Chanteau's gout-ridden agony. Her love of life contrasts with the insularity and pessimism that infects the family, especially Lazare, for whom she develops a devoted passion. Gradually, Madame Chanteau starts to take advantage of Pauline's generous nature, and jealousy and resentment threaten to blight all their lives. The arrival of a pretty family friend, Louise, brings tensions to a head.

The twelfth novel in the Rougon Macquart series, The Bright Side of Life is remarkable for its depiction of intense emotions and physical and mental suffering. The precarious location of Bonneville and the changing moods of the sea mirror the turbulent relations of the characters, and as the story unfolds its title comes to seem ever more ironic.

I really don't understand how people can blame a priest so much, when he strays from the path.

Serge Mouret, is an obsessively devout priest, aspiring to perfect purity and sanctity. A serious illness leaves him with amnesia, and no longer knowing he is a priest, he falls in love with his nurse Albine. Together they roam an Eden-like garden called the Paradou, seeking a forbidden tree, beneath whose boughs they make love. Anguish follows, as the abbe regains his memory and returns to the church.

In this, the fifth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, Zola concentrates on the conflict between church and nature; celibacy and sexuality. The Sin of Abbe Mouret is Zola's version of the Fall of Man and has many biblical parallels. The novel stands out among the author's work for its lyricism and the extravagant beauty of the descriptions. The edition includes a wide-ranging introduction and useful historical notes.

Here is a true publishing event-the first modern translation of a lost masterpiece by one of fiction's giants. Censored upon publication in 1871, out of print since the 1950s, and untranslated for a century, Zola's The Kill (La Cur e) emerges as an unheralded classic of naturalism. Second in the author's twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart saga, it is a riveting story of family transgression, heedless desire, and societal greed.

The incestuous affair of Ren e Saccard and her stepson, Maxime, is set against the frenzied speculation of Ren e's financier husband, Aristide, in a Paris becoming a modern metropolis and the capital of the nineteenth century. In the end, setting and story merge in actions that leave a woman's spirit and a city's soul ravaged beyond repair. As vividly rendered by Arthur Goldhammer, one of the world's premier translators from the French, The Kill contains all the qualities of the school of fiction marked, as Henry James wrote, by infernal intelligence.

In this new incarnation, The Kill joins Nana and Germinal on the shelf of Zola classics, works by an immortal author who-explicit, pitiless, wise, and unrelenting-always goes in for the kill.

Émile Zola was one of the most important, though controversial, French novelists of the late nineteenth century. A founder of the realist literary movement. Zola began in 1871 to write his most notable series of novels, Les Rougon-Macquart, in which he relates the history of a fictional family under the Second Empire in France. Unlike Honoré de Balzac, whose works examined a wider scope of French society, Zola focused on the evolution of one single family. The third novel in this series, Le Ventre de Paris, which literally translates as The Belly of Paris, was first published in French in 1873 and in English in 1888. It is the first novel in the series to represent the French working class in its entirety. It tells the tale of Florent, an escaped political prisoner who seeks refuge in Paris with his half-brother Quenu and his wife Lisa. The subject of great controversy in England when first published by Henry Vizetelly, who was convicted of obscene libel for having done so, the novel was subsequently released in an expurgated form by Vizetelly's son Edward. This edition presents the original unexpurgated edition first published in 1888 by Henry Vizetelly and is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Au bout de la rue Gu n gaud, lorsqu'on vient des quais, on trouve le passage du Pont-Neuf, une sorte de corridor troit et sombre qui va de la rue Mazarine la rue de Seine. Ce passage a trente pas de long et deux de large, au plus; il est pav de dalles jaun tres, us es, descell es, suant toujours une humidit acre; le vitrage qui le couvre, coup angle droit, est noir de crasse.

Excerpt r Denise derriere le comptoir. Aussitot, Pepe monta sur les genoux de sa soeur, tandis que Jean, adosse contre une boiserie, se tenait pres d'elle. Ils se rassuraient, regardaient la boutique, ou leurs yeux s'habituaient a l'obscurite. Maintenant, ils la voyaient, avec son plafond bas et enfume, ses comptoirs de chene polis par l'usage, ses casiers seculaires aux fortes ferrures. Des ballots de marchandises sombres montaient jusqu'aux solives. L'odeur des draps et des teintures, une odeur apre de chimie, semblait decuplee par l'humidite du plancher. Au fond, deux commis et une demoiselle rangeaient des pieces de flanelle blanche. -- Peut-etre ce petit monsieur-la prendrait-il volontiers quelque chose? dit Mme Baudu en souriant a Pepe. -- Non, merci, repondit Denise. Nous avons bu une tasse de lait dans un cafe, devant la gare. Et, comme Genevieve regardait le leger paquet qu'elle avait pose par terre, elle ajouta: -- J'ai laisse notre malle la-bas. Elle rougissait, elle comprenait qu'on ne tomb

In January 1898 French novelist and critic mile Zola played an important part in the defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew unjustly accused of selling military secrets to Germany. On the front page of a Paris newspaper, the author published a terrific denunciation of French government officials, entitled J'accuse... (I Accuse... ) It was written as an open letter to F lix Faure, President of the French Republic, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus Affair. The brave letter had much to do with freeing Dreyfus in 1899.

Considered one of the masterpieces of world-renowned naturalist Emile Zola, Nana is his finely written work on the demimonde of France's failing Second Empire. A symbolically compounded novel, it follows the rise and fall of Nana, a street-walking prostitute who becomes an actress at the Th tre des Vari t s. Though apparently independent and self-confident in her role of 'high-class cocette', Nana envies the material possessions of the people around her, and the series of besotted men, and occasionally women, whom she betrays and ruins are a testament to her selfishness and vanity. What is surprising is Zola's genius in creating the strength and generosity of Nana, the elemental goodness in an unintelligent woman who can't seem to prevent herself from initiating chaos. Though she advances through society, she ultimately only manages to fall from greater heights, taking on an almost mythical quality even as she remains eminently realistic. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translation of Burton Rascoe.

First serialized in French in 1885, Émile Zola's The Masterpiece is the story of naturalist painter Claude Lantier and is believed to be a highly fictionalized account of Zola's real-life friendship with the painter Paul Cézanne. The fictional artist of Zola's Bohemian world, Lantier, strives to complete a great work that will reflect his own talent and genius as a revolutionary, but struggles greatly in living up to his artistic potential. The story was perhaps too personal for Cézanne, whose correspondence with Zola ended immediately after the novel's publication. Nevertheless, this story of the misunderstood artist, brilliant but scorned by the intolerant art-going public, and their unwillingness to abandon traditional practices, epitomizes the attitudes of bohemian revolutionaries and is an enduring example of nineteenth-century French naturalism. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translation of Edward Vizetelly.

The Ladies' Paradise by mile Zola is a captivating work of French literature set in 19th century Paris, revolving around the rise of a grand department store. Within its bustling halls, the novel intricately weaves themes of romance, consumerism, and capitalism, reflecting the evolving landscape of urbanization. At the heart of the story lies the allure of fashion and desire, as the department store becomes a symbol of modernity and ambition. Through the lens of social class, Zola explores the dynamics of power and influence, depicting the struggles and triumphs of those seeking to ascend the ranks. Amidst the backdrop of bustling Parisian streets, women find empowerment within the confines of the store, challenging societal norms and embracing their own agency. Yet, within this world of seduction and competition, desires clash and ambitions soar, driving the characters to both success and downfall. As the narrative unfolds, Zola masterfully captures the pulse of a changing society, where the pursuit of wealth and status intertwines with the complexities of human relationships. The Ladies' Paradise stands as a timeless exploration of the forces that shape our desires and the consequences of our relentless pursuit of ambition.

Emile Zola (1840 - 1902) fue un escritor franc s, considerado como el padre y el mayor representante del Naturalismo. Tuvo un papel muy relevante en la revisi n del proceso de Alfred Dreyfus, que le cost el exilio. Su influencia sobre las generaciones posteriores de escritores no fue s lo literaria, ya que su actitud de involucrarse tanto en la literatura como en la realidad social se transform en un paradigma del escritor comprometido y domin la escena cultural de occidente hasta la d cada de los 70.

The novel's central character is tienne Lantier, previously seen in L'Assommoir (1877), a young migrant worker who arrives at the forbidding coalmining town of Montsou in the bleak far north of France to earn a living as a miner. Sacked from his previous job on the railways for assaulting a superior - he befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit. tienne is portrayed as a hard-working idealist but also a na ve youth; Zola's genetic theories come into play as tienne is presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestors' traits of hotheaded impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the influence of drink or strong passions

By merging elements of the gothic and tragic...Zola created a work of enduring fascination. Anna Winter, THE GUARDIAN

First published in 1890, Therese Raquin -- Emile Zola's classic tale of forbidden love and murder -- has served as the basis for television programs, radio plays, operas, movies (including 2013's In Secret starring Jessica Lange and Elizabeth Olsen), and stage plays (including the 2015 Broadway production starring Keira Knightley). The story follows impoverished orphan Therese Raquin, forced to marry a sickly cousin, until her life changes when she meets the charismatic Laurent -- and the two fall into love and madness, plotting and carrying out her husband's murder, with unexpected consequences.

La Faute de l'abb Mouret By mile Zola

In The Downfall Zola tells the story of a terrific land-slide which overwhelmed the French Second Empire: It is a story of war, grim and terrible; of a struggle to the death between two great nations. In it the author has put much of his finest work, and the result is one of the masterpieces of literature. The hero is Jean Macquart, son of Antoine Macquart and brother of Gervaise. After the terrible death of his wife, as told in La Terre (The Soil), Jean enlisted for the second time in the army, and went through the campaign up to the battle of Sedan. After the capitulation he was made prisoner, and in escaping was wounded. When he returned to active service he took part in crushing the excesses of the Commune in Paris... The Downfall has been described as a prose epic of modern war, and vast though the subject be, it is treated in a manner that is powerful, painful, and pathetic.

The second volume of four in the complete set, this is the first time that the vast and varied collection of Emile Zola's short fiction has been brought together in a uniform edition specially presented for the American reader.

The third volume of four in the complete set, this is the first time that the vast and varied collection of Emile Zola's short fiction is brought together in a uniform edition specially presented for the American reader.