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The Best Books By Emile Zola You Should Read

Emile Zola, one of the most famous French writers of all time, was a very important contributor to the Naturalist movement. He also led an active political life, which is reflected in some of his works. His novels are infused with realism, as he wanted to create accurate portrayals of what life was like at the time. Below we have compiled a list of the best books by Zola you should read.

Germinal (1885)

Germinal is the 13th novel in Zola’s collection of Les Rougon-Macquart , a set of books that he grouped together, creating blood ties between some of the characters in order to try to give a complete panorama of life under Napoleon II. Germinal is the harsh, realistic account of coalminers’ lives in the north of France and their hopes for a better life. Zola spent a great amount of time researching miners’ lives in order to intertwine fiction and reality in this novel and create the semblance of a true story. The name was taken from one of the months of the French Republican Calendar.

La Bête Humaine (1890)

This is a thriller novel in which Zola explores the themes of sexuality and psychosis. The main character, who is the brother of Germinal ’s protagonist, has a hereditary madness. Jack the Ripper was an important source of inspiration for Zola for this character, whose psychosis consists in him only being sexually aroused when he kills women, and he thus goes on a terrifying rampage while travelling on a train between Paris and Le Havre. La Bête Humaine (which means the human beast) also forms part of the Rougon-Macquart series.

L’Oeuvre (1886)

Often translated into English as The Masterpiece , L’Oeuvre is the 14th novel of the Rougon-Macquart collection. It is a fictionalization of Zola and Cezanne’s friendship and it aims to represent the world of artists in 19th century Paris, exploring the rise of movements such as Naturalism, Realism and Impressionism in the art world. This book has often been considered the reason behind Zola and Cezanne’s falling out, since Zola portrays a young, talented artist who is nevertheless unable to live up to his own potential.

L’Assommoir (1877)

The last novel on our list of the best books by Zola you should read is L’Assommoir , the 7th novel in the Rougon-Macquart series. This book explores the problems of alcoholism and poverty in 19th century Paris, especially in the working-class areas of the city. Zola showcases these problems through the character of Gervaise Macquart, a woman with two sons who is abandoned by her lover and is forced to fend for herself and protect her family against her newfound lover’s alcoholism.

Thérèse Raquin (1867)

Thérèse Raquin was one of the first novels by Zola (he wrote it when he was only 27) and it received a lot of negative criticism. The writer worked hard to make it realistic and depict the hardships of daily life in Paris, but that did not please the critics. The novel is the story of Thérèse, a 21-year-old woman who is unhappily married to her cousin. Sex, imprisonment and animalistic tendencies are just a few of the main themes of this novel, often considered Zola’s first major work, despite the reviews he received when he first published it.

Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)

Translated into English as The Ladies’ Delight or The Ladies’ Paradise , this novel is the 11th in the Rougon-Macquart series. ‘Au Bonheur des Dames’ is the name of the department store (a quite recent phenomenon in Zola’s world) that is the main stage of the novel. It focuses around the stories of Denise Baudu, a young woman who has come to Paris and works at the department store, and Octave Mouret, the owner of the store. Zola describes the substandard conditions that Denise lives and works in, and the novel is based around the conflicts that arise as each character tries to rise up in the retail world and escape the grim lives they lead.

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9 Best Books Of Emile Zola

By: Author Christine Rogador

Posted on October 30, 2023

Are you planning on reading the best books of Emile Zola but don’t know where to begin? Well, we’ve got you covered!

Emile Zola, a French novelist , journalist, and playwright, had a profound impact on literature by championing naturalism – a movement dedicated to portraying life’s raw reality, including its social, economic, and psychological influences on human behavior.

Zola’s extensive body of work includes over 60 books, but his standout accomplishment is the 20-novel series known as Les Rougon-Macquart . This literary masterpiece immerses readers in the tumultuous history of a family during the Second French Empire.

Within these pages, Zola skillfully explores gripping themes such as class conflicts, human desires, morality, the role of genetics, and societal transformations.

Although each novel in the series can be read as a standalone story, they feature recurring characters and interconnected events, providing readers with a rich and immersive experience.

Emile Zola’s novels serve as windows to the past, providing a vivid and authentic glimpse into the world of his time. Here’s a list of some the best books of Emile Zola that you should read and enjoy.

Things you'll find in this article

1. Thérèse Raquin (1868)

2. germinal (1885), 3. l’assommoir (1877), 4. nana (1880), 5. au bonheur des dames (1883), 6. l’oeuvre (1886), 7. la terre (1887), 8. le rêve (1888), 9. la bête humaine (1890).

Thérèse Raquin is one of Émile Zola’s early and quite startling novels.

The story revolves around the life of Thérèse, who finds herself stuck in a loveless marriage with her cousin Camille, who’s not in the best of health. As fate would have it, she falls head over heels for Laurent, a friend of Camille’s. Together, they hatch a plan to get rid of Camille and start a new life together.

However, their dark deed leaves them haunted by guilt and paranoia, driving their love into a pit of hatred and violence. Thérèse Raquin is a gripping psychological thriller that delves deep into themes like adultery, murder, remorse, and madness.

Germinal is often considered Émile Zola’s masterpiece and a highly influential novel. It takes us to northern France in the 1860s, where coal miners struggle against harsh conditions, exploitation, and violence.

The story follows the rise of a socialist movement led by the idealistic Etienne Lantier, who belongs to the Rougon-Macquart family. Through its powerful and realistic narrative, Germinal sheds light on the social injustices and human suffering caused by capitalism.

This book is the 13th installment in Zola’s remarkable series, Les Rougon-Macquart .

This book is the 7th installment in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, and it’s one of Zola’s most heart-wrenching and true-to-life stories. The novel’s title, L’Assommoir, roughly translates to English as “The Stunner,” which is an allusion to the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption.

L’Assommoir delves into the life of Gervaise Macquart, a hardworking laundress trying to make ends meet in the gritty streets of Paris. Along her journey, she ties the knot with Coupeau, a roofer who turns to alcoholism following a tragic accident. To make matters worse, her abusive ex-husband, Lantier, resurfaces to haunt her. Gervaise’s life is a heartbreaking tale of poverty, hardship, violence, and addiction.

L’Assommoir is a poignant social drama that sheds light on the devastating impact of alcoholism and urban poverty on the lives of the working class.

Nana is the 9th book in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, and it’s one of Zola’s most talked-about works.

This book tells the story of Nana Coupeau, a stunning and alluring courtesan who knows how to use her charm and allure to control and sometimes ruin men from all walks of life.

Nana symbolizes the decadence and corruption of the Second Empire, and she’s also a victim of her own family’s issues. The book truly dives into critiquing the moral decline and hypocrisy of French society at the time.

Au Bonheur des Dames , or The Ladies’ Paradise in English, marks the 11th installment in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, showcasing Zola’s more optimistic and vibrant storytelling.

The book tells the tale of Octave Mouret, an innovative entrepreneur who pioneers a massive department store, ushering in a new era of consumerism and capitalism. In the narrative, we also follow the journey of Denise Baudu, a young saleswoman who works at Mouret’s establishment and courageously rebuffs his romantic pursuits.

Au Bonheur des Dames serves as a captivating and lively depiction of how urbanization, industrialization, and commerce transformed the landscape of Paris.

The title, when translated directly as The Work (like a piece of art), is usually presented in English as The Masterpiece – or sometimes, His Masterpiece .

This is the 14th novel in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, and one of Zola’s most personal and autobiographical works.

The book L’Oeuvre or The Masterpiece tells the story of Claude Lantier, a talented but unsuccessful painter who is obsessed with creating a masterpiece that will revolutionize the art world. He is also involved in a turbulent relationship with Christine, a young woman who becomes his model and lover.

The novel is a critique of the artistic movements of the time, such as Impressionism and Naturalism, and reflects Zola’s friendship and rivalry with Paul Cézanne.

La Terre , also known as The Earth in English, is the 15th novel in the Les Rougon-Macquart series by Zola. It is a quite intense and thought-provoking piece of literature.

La Terre dives into the lives of the hardworking folks in a rural Beauce village, where owning and working the land is everything – it’s where wealth and influence come from.

The story revolves around the Buteau family, caught up in a heated feud with their neighbors over a piece of land. It portrays the complexities of rural life, highlighting the struggles, greed, and resistance to change among the local folks.

La Terre is an eye-opening epic that lays bare the tough realities of life in the French countryside.

Le Rêve is the 16th novel in the Les Rougon-Macquart series, and one of Zola’s most romantic and poetic works. The title means “The Dream” in English.

It tells the story of Angélique, an orphan girl who is adopted by a couple of embroiderers in a cathedral town. She falls in love with Félicien, the son of a wealthy nobleman who opposes their marriage.

Angélique lives in a world of fantasy and imagination, inspired by the legends and symbols of the stained glass windows and tapestries in the cathedral. The book beautifully portrays the stark difference between Angélique’s idealism and innocence, and the harsh realism and corruption prevalent in the society she encounters.

This book marks the 17th installment in the fascinating Les Rougon-Macquart series, showcasing Emile Zola at his most thrilling and suspenseful.

La Bête Humaine (English: The Beast Within ) introduces its readers to Jacques Lantier, a locomotive engineer dealing with a hereditary madness that occasionally drives him towards violent impulses. His world becomes entangled with Séverine, the wife of his colleague Roubaud, who, with Jacques’s assistance, has committed a heinous crime.

As the story unfolds, Jacques and Séverine find themselves caught in a passionate affair, but their love is constantly threatened by Jacques’ inner turmoil and Roubaud’s simmering jealousy.

In this book, Zola dives deep into the human psyche, creating a compelling exploration of crime and passion, all set against the backdrop of the modern railway industry.

Hi, I’m Christine – a full-time traveler and career woman. Although I’m from the Philippines, my location independent career took me to over 40 countries and lived in 4 continents in the last 10 years, including France. A self-proclaimed Francophile, I love everything France.

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Émile Zola (April 2, 1840 – September 29, 1902) was an influential French novelist , the most important example of the literary school of naturalism , and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. Zola risked his career and even his life to expose French anti-Semitism in the matter of the Dreyfus Affair with the publication of his open letter "J'accuse." His defense of Dreyfus led to a conviction for libel, yet he continued to speak out against this miscarriage of justice.

• 1.1 Literary career
• 1.2 Dreyfus Affair
• 1.3 Final days
• 5 Major Works
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Whereas realism seeks only to describe subjects as they really are, naturalism also attempts to determine "scientifically" the underlying forces (i.e. the environment or heredity) influencing these subjects' actions. In this concern one can see the influence of evolution theory of Charles Darwin and the discussion about nature versus nurture. Zola's naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter. They had a frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism, and they dealt with the lives of ordinary people. Zola's many novels exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty , racism , prejudice , disease , and prostitution , by which he focused on social problems with the hope of catalyzing social reform.

Born in Paris , the son of an Italian engineer, Émile Zola spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence and was educated at the Collège Bourbon (now called Collège Mignet). At age 18 he returned to Paris where he studied at the Lycée Saint-Louis. After working at several low-level clerical jobs, he began to write a literary column for a newspaper. Controversial from the beginning, he did not hide his disdain for Napoleon III, who used the Second Republic as a vehicle to become Emperor.

Literary career

More than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "hereditary" influence of violence, alcoholism , and prostitution in two branches of a single family: The respectable (that is, legitimate) Rougons and the disreputable (illegitimate) Macquarts, over a period of five generations.

As he described his plans for the series, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world."

Zola's literary project in no small part resembled that of Honore de Balzac , whose Comedie Humaine signaled the emergence of a new literary movement, Realism . Zola was a leading proponent of the school of naturalism. Naturalism was an outgrowth of Realism , an attempt to take realism to new heights, or depths. Naturalism employed the same literary techniques as realism, but the rundown boarding house of Madame de Vaquer, which Balzac portrays in exhaustive detail in the first 30+ pages of Pere Goriot is positively palatial compared to the locations described in Zola and the other naturalists' texts. Naturalism is more "realistic" than realism in its efforts to portray the underside of society.

Zola and the painter Paul Cézanne were friends from childhood and in youth, but broke in later life over Zola's fictionalized depiction of Cézanne and the bohemian life of painters in his novel L'Œuvre ( The Masterpiece, 1886).

Dreyfus Affair

He risked his career and even his life on January 13, 1898, when his " J'accuse " was published on the front page of the Paris daily, L'Aurore. The paper was run by Ernest Vaughan and Georges Clemenceau, who decided that the controversial story would be in the form of an open letter to the President, Félix Faure. "J'accuse" accused the French government of anti-Semitism and of wrongfully placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail. Zola was brought to trial for libel on February 7, 1898, and was convicted on February 23. Zola declared that the conviction and transportation to Devil's Island of the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus came after a false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. The case, known as the Dreyfus affair , had divided France deeply between the reactionary army and church and the more liberal commercial society. The ramifications continued for years, so much so that on the 100th anniversary of Émile Zola's article, France's Roman Catholic daily paper, La Croix, apologized for its anti-Semitic editorials during the Dreyfus Affair.

Zola was a leading light of France and his letter formed a major turning-point in the Dreyfus affair. In the course of events, Zola was convicted of libel, sentenced, and removed from the Legion of Honor . Rather than go to jail, he fled to England . Soon he was allowed to return in time to see the government fall. Dreyfus was offered a pardon (rather than exonerated) by the government, and, facing a re-trial in which he was sure to be convicted again, had no choice but to accept the pardon if he wished to go free. By accepting it, he was, in effect, saying that he was guilty, although he clearly was not. Zola said, "The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it." In 1906, Dreyfus was completely exonerated by the Supreme Court.

Zola died in Paris on September 29, 1902, of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a stopped chimney. He was 62 years old. His enemies were blamed, but nothing was proven, although decades later, a Parisian roofer claimed on his deathbed to have closed the chimney for political reasons. [1] He was initially buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris , but on June 4, 1908, almost six years after his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris.

The biographical film The Life of Emile Zola won the Academy Award for "Best Picture" in 1937. The film focuses mainly on Zola's involvement in the Dreyfus Affair.

In January 1998, President Jacques Chirac held a memorial to honor the centenary of " J'Accuse ."

Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to Zola's greatest literary achievement, a monumental 20-novel cycle about the exploits of various members of an extended family during the French Second Empire, from the coup d'état of December 1851, which established Napoleon III as Emperor through to the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 which brought the Empire down.

Almost all of the main protagonists for each novel are introduced in the first book, La Fortune des Rougon. The last novel in the cycle, Le Docteur Pascal, contains a lengthy chapter tying up virtually all the loose ends from the other novels. In between, there is no "best sequence" in which to read the novels in the cycle, as they are not in chronological order and indeed are impossible to arrange into such an order. Although some of the novels in the cycle are direct sequels to one another, many of them follow on directly from the last chapters of La Fortune des Rougon, and there is a great deal of chronological overlap between the books; there are numerous recurring characters and several of them make "guest" appearances in novels centered on other members of the family.

All 20 of the novels have been translated into English under various titles (details of which are listed under each novel's individual entry), but some of the translations are out of print or badly outdated and censored. Excellent modern English translations are widely available for nine of the most popular novels in the cycle.

Germinal (1885) is the thirteenth novel in Zola's 20-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered Zola's undisputed masterpiece and one of the greatest novels ever written in the French language, the novel—an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s—has been published and translated in over one hundred countries as well as inspiring five film adaptations and two television productions.

The novel's central character is Etienne Lantier, previously seen in Zola's other masterpiece, L'Assommoir (1877), a young migrant worker who arrives at the forbidding coal mining 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—Etienne was originally to have been the central character in Zola's "murder on the trains" thriller La Bête humaine (1890), before the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Germinal persuaded him otherwise—he befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit.

Etienne is portrayed as a hard-working idealist but also a naïve youth; Zola's genetic theories come into play as Etienne 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. Zola manages to keep his theorizing in the background and Etienne's motivations are much more natural as a result. He embraces socialist principles, reading large amounts of extremist left-wing literature and fraternizing with Souvarine, a Russian anarchist and political emigré who has also come to Montsou to seek a living in the pits. Etienne's simplistic understanding of socialist politics and their rousing effect on him are very reminiscent of the rebel Silvère in the first novel in the cycle, La Fortune des Rougon (1871).

Etienne also falls for Maheu's daughter, Catherine, also employed pushing carts in the mines, and he is drawn into the relationship between her and her brutish lover Chaval, a prototype for the character of Buteau in Zola's later novel La Terre (1887). The complex tangle of the miners' lives is played out against a backdrop of severe poverty and oppression, as their working and living conditions continue to worsen throughout the novel; pushed to breaking point, the miners decide to strike and Etienne, now a respected member of the community and recognized as a political idealist, becomes the leader of the movement. While the anarchist Souvarine preaches violent action, the miners and their families hold back, their poverty becoming ever more disastrous, until they are sparked into a ferocious riot, the violence of which is described in explicit terms by Zola, as well as providing some of the novelist's best and most evocative crowd scenes. The rioters are eventually confronted by police and the army, who repress the revolt in a violent and unforgettable episode. Disillusioned, the miners go back to work, blaming Etienne for the failure of the strike; then, in a fit of anarchist fervor, Souvarine sabotages the entrance shaft of one of the Montsou pits, trapping Etienne, Catherine, and Chaval at the bottom. The ensuing drama and the long wait for rescue are among some of Zola's best scenes, and the novel draws to a dramatic close.

The title, Germinal, is drawn from the springtime seventh month of the French Revolutionary Calendar, and is meant to evoke imagery of germination, new growth, and fertility. Accordingly, Zola ends the novel on a note of hope, and one which has provided inspiration to socialist and reformist causes of all kinds throughout the years since its first publication:

Beneath the blazing of the sun, in that morning of new growth, the countryside rang with song, as its belly swelled with a black and avenging army of men, germinating slowly in its furrows, growing upwards in readiness for harvests to come, until one day soon their ripening would burst open the earth itself.

By the time of his death, the novel had come to be recognized as his undisputed masterpiece. At his funeral crowds of workers gathered, cheering the cortège with shouts of "Germinal! Germinal!" Since then the book has come to symbolize working class causes and to this day retains a special place in French mining-town folklore.

Zola was always very proud of Germinal, and was always keen to defend its accuracy against accusations of hyperbole and exaggeration (from the conservatives) or of slander against the working classes (from the socialists). His research had been typically thorough, especially the parts involving lengthy observational visits to northern French mining towns in 1884, such as witnessing the after-effects of a crippling miners' strike first-hand at Anzin or actually going down a working coal pit at Denain. The mine scenes are especially vivid and haunting as a result.

A sensation upon original publication, it is now by far the best-selling of Zola's novels, both in France and internationally.

"Let us never forget the courage of a great writer who, taking every risk, putting his tranquility, his fame, even his life in peril, dared to pick up his pen and place his talent in the service of truth."— Jacques Chirac

"Zola descends into the sewer to bathe in it, I to cleanse it."— Henrik Ibsen

"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest."— Émile Zola

Major Works

• La Confession de Claude (1865)
• Thérèse Raquin (1867)
• Madeleine Férat (1868)
• Le Roman Experimental (1880)
• La Fortune des Rougon (1871)
• La Curée (1871–72)
• Le Ventre de Paris (1873)
• La Conquête de Plassans (1874)
• La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (1875)
• Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876)
• L'Assommoir (1877)
• Une Page d'amour (1878)
• Nana (1880)
• Pot-Bouille (1882)
• Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
• La Joie de vivre (1884)
• Germinal (1885)
• L'Œuvre (1886)
• La Terre (1887)
• Le Rêve (1888)
• La Bête humaine (1890)
• L'Argent (1891)
• La Débâcle (1892)
• Le Docteur Pascal (1893)
• Lourdes (1894)
• Rome (1896)
• Paris (1898)
• Fécondité (1899)
• Travail (1901)
• Vérité (1903, published posthumously)
• Justice (unfinished)
• ↑ Frederick Brown. Zola, A Life. (Humanity Press/Prometheus Bk; New Ed edition, 1997). ISBN 0333662121

References ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Brown, Frederick. Zola, A Life . Humanity Press/Prometheus Bk, 1997. ISBN 0333662121
• Hemmings, F.W.J. The Life and Times of Emile Zola . Bloomsbury Reader, 2013. ISBN 978-1448205202
• Schom, Alan. Emile Zola: A Biography . Henry Holt & Co, 1988. ISBN 978-0805007107

External links

All links retrieved February 13, 2024.

• Works by Émile Zola . Project Gutenberg.
• Émile Zola works : text, concordances and frequency list.
• The Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola (for English-speaking Readers) provides an American enthusiast's introduction, insights and synopses.

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