In contrast with the epic scope of the Rougon-Macquart novels, Zola’s short stories are concerned with the everyday aspects of human existence and the interests of ordinary people....

Most famous for his twenty-volume dissection of nineteenth-century French mores and society, the Rougon-Macquart novels, Zola was also an extremely accomplished short-story writer, as exemplified by the tales included in this volume....

Encapsulating in luxurious detail the phenomenon of consumer society ? obsessed with image, fashion and instant gratification ? The Ladies’ Paradise vividly depicts the workings of a new commercial entity, the department store....

Finding the young Angelique on their doorstep one Christmas Eve, the pious Hubert couple decide to bring her up as their own....

Now bankrupt after some failed gambles, Aristide Saccard, the former kingpin of the Paris Stock Exchange, desperately wants to get back to the top of the financial pile....

Nana tells the story of the rise of the rise of the young woman Nana Coupeau from the slums of Paris to the life of a high-class escort. Considered outrageous when it was first published in 1880, its heroine is a character of questionable morals surrounded by corrupt society....

Despite the grimness of his subject and the accuracy of his description, Zola tells an irresistible tale of life above and below ground among the mining families of Montsou. By turns heroic, comic, touching and bestial, the novel never flinches from savage reality while managing to paint a moving picture of humanity at its limit and beyond....

His haunting, impressionistic study of a man\"s slow corruption by jealousy, Emile Zola\"s The Beast Within (La Bete Humaine) is translated from the French with an introduction and notes by Roger Whitehouse in Penguin Classics. Roubaud is consumed by a jealous rage when he discovers a sordid secret about his young wife\"s past....

Previously published as L\"assommoir (The Dram Shop), Emile Zola\"s The Drinking Den is an unflinching study of a desperate young woman struggling against the ravages of vice. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the French with an introduction by Robin Buss....

Perhaps his most famous work, Emile Zola\"s Therese Raquin is a dark and gripping story of lust, violence and guilt, set in the gloomy back streets of Paris. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes and an introduction by Robin Buss....

The Ladies\" Delight is the glittering Paris department store run by Octave Mouret. He has used charm and drive to become director of this mighty emporium, unscrupulously exploiting his young female staff and seducing his lady customers with luxurious displays of shimmering silks, satins, velvets and lace....

Considered by Andre Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, Emile Zola\"s Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty of a mining community in northern France Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper....

Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Theatre des Varietes. She soon rises from the streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of her day....

Nana Dans le Paris du Second Empire, Nana, jeune prostituee sans scrupule et comedienne sans talent, seduit et ruine un a un les hommes les plus riches qui s\"eprennent d\"elle. Mais la « Venus blonde », apres une periode de gloire, sombre progressivement dans la misere et la solitude....

Pour suivre le destin d\"Etienne Lantier, Zola visite les bassins houillers, descend dans les puits, etudie Marx et Proudhon, s\"informe sur les luttes proletariennes. Mineur a la fosse du Voreux, dans le Nord, Etienne prend pension chez les Maheu, ouvriers de pere en fils....