Émile Zola was one of the most important, though controversial, French novelists of the late nineteenth century, and founder of the Realist movement. In 1871 Zola began to write his most notable series of novels, the "Rougon-Macquart Novels", that relate the history of a fictional family under the Second Empire. As a strict naturalist, Zola was greatly concerned with science, especially the problems of evolution and heredity vs. environment. However,...

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola[1] (* 2. April 1840 in Paris; † 29. September 1902 ebenda) war ein französischer Schriftsteller und Journalist. Zola gilt als einer der großen französischen Romanciers des 19. Jahrhunderts und als Leitfigur und Begründer der gesamteuropäischen literarischen Strömung des Naturalismus. Zugleich war er ein sehr aktiver Journalist, der sich auf einer gemäßigt linken Position am politischen Leben beteiligte....

Lourdes (1894) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Lourdes is the first installment in Zola's celebrated Three Cities Trilogy. Published toward the end of Zola's career, the trilogy is an ambitious, sweeping study of one man's struggle with faith in political, religious, and social life. Following his protagonist Abbé Pierre Froment, Zola provides a striking portrait of the soul of modern man in crisis with itself and with an ever-changing world....

Emile Zola's novel Le Rêve (1888) is a love idyll between a poor embroideress and the son of a wealthy aristocratic family set against the background of a sleepy cathedral town in northern France. A far cry from the seething, teeming world evoked in Zola's best-known novels, it may at first seem a strange interlude between La Terre and La Bête Humaine in the 20-volume sequence known as the Rougon-Macquart cycle. However, belying its appearance as...

The Experimental Novel (1880) is an essay by French author Émile Zola. Written at the height of his career as a leading proponent of Naturalism, The Experimental Novel serves to illuminate the author's approach to the practice and purpose of writing while advocating for a revolution of style among artists of his era. Read as a reaction against Romanticism, The Experimental Novel proves a convincing counterpoint to the excesses and failures of nineteenth...

The Mysteries of Marseilles (1895) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Originally serialized in Le Messager de Provence in 1867, The Mysteries of Marseilles was, written at the very beginning of Zola's literary career. Intent on exploring taboo and the lives of people on the edge of society, Zola crafts, a narrative capable of illuminating the human condition while humanizing those typically, disdained by the literary elite. In mid-nineteenth...

The Fat and the Thin (1873) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. The third of twenty volumes of Zola's monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series is an epic story of family, politics, class, and history that traces the disparate paths of several French citizens raised by the same mother. Spanning the entirety of the French Second Empire, Zola provides a sweeping portrait of change that refuses to shy away from controversy and truth as it gets to the...

The Ladies' Delight (1883) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. The eleventh of twenty volumes of Zola's monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series is an epic story of family, politics, class, and history that traces the disparate paths of several French citizens raised by the same mother. Spanning the entirety of the French Second Empire, Zola provides a sweeping portrait of change that refuses to shy away from controversy and truth as it gets to...

The Rush for the Spoil (1872) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. The second of twenty volumes of Zola's monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series is an epic story of family, politics, class, and history that traces the disparate paths of several French citizens raised by the same mother. Spanning the entirety of the French Second Empire, Zola provides a sweeping portrait of change that refuses to shy away from controversy and truth as it gets to...

Claude's Confession (1865) is a novel by French author, Émile Zola. Written at night while Zola was, employed at Hachette, Claude's Confession proved scandalous upon publication and resulted in the loss of his job. Undeterred by the response to his literary debut, Zola took advantage of his newfound infamy in order to embark on a career as one of France's foremost experimental writers. Intent on exploring taboo and the lives of people on the edge...