The Fortune of the Rougons: A Realistic Novel

Émile François Zola (1840-1902) was a journalist, a novelist, a playwright, and a political activist. He was one of the most influential French novelists of the 19th century and the founder of the literary and theatrical school of naturalism. Zola was a major figure in the political liberalization of France. Émile Zola’s works include novels, dramas, poetry, and criticism, among which is his famous Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-1893), a cycle of twenty novels which depict various aspects of life and society, such as La Fortune des Rougon, the first novel of the series, originally published in French in 1871, from which this book was translated; L’Assommoir (1877), the seventh novel of the series, about the suffering of the Parisian working-class; Nana (1880), the ninth installment, which deals with prostitution; Piping Hot!, the translation of Pot-Bouille (1882), the tenth novel of the cycle and Zola’s most sarcastic satire, which describes daily life in a newly constructed block of flats in late nineteenth-century Paris; The Ladies Paradise (1883), the eleventh novel (original title: Au Bonheur des Dames), which focuses on Octave Mouret, who, in Pot-Bouille, meets Caroline Hédouin, the owner of a small silk shop; and Germinal (1885), the thirteenth novel in the series, which depicts the mining industry and is considered by some as his masterpiece. Zola’s open letter to French president Félix Faure, under the headline J’Accuse...!, published on the front page of the newspaper L’Aurore on January 13, 1898, charging various French officials with a ＂terrible miscarriage of justice,＂ reopened the case of the Jewish army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who had been sentenced to Devil’s Island. For that, Zola was himself sentenced to a year in prison but fled to England, returning one year later after Dreyfus’ name had been cleared. Dreyfus was eventually reinstated as an officer and publicly decorated with the Legion of Honor.