Frank Thomas Marzials

“ The first impression it produces may be one of heaviness, and the later “gospels” on population and work are distinctly ponderous. But for rendering the gloomy horror of the subjects in which he most delights—detail on detail being accumulated till the result is overwhelming—Zola has no superior. Some of his descriptions of crowds in movement have never been surpassed.
Zola played a very important part in the Dreyfus affair, which convulsed French politics and social life at the end of the 19th century. ”

“ The history of this family, the Rougon-Macquart, was to be told in a series of novels containing a scientific study of heredity—science was always Zola’s ignis fatuus—and a picture of French life and society. The first novel of the series, La Fortune des Rougon, appeared in book form at the end of 1871. It was followed by La Curée (1874) , Le Ventre de Paris (1874) , La Conquête de Plassans (1875) , La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret (1875) , Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876) —all books unquestionably of immense ability, and in a measure successful, but not great popular successes. ”

“ ZOLA, ÉMILE ÉDOUARD CHARLES ANTOINE (1840–1902) , French novelist, was born in Paris on the 2nd of April 1840, his father being an engineer, part Italian and part Greek, and his mother a Frenchwoman. The father seems to have been an energetic, visionary man, who, dying while his only son was a little lad, left to his family no better provision than a lawsuit against the municipality of the town of Aix. It was at Aix, which figures as Plassans in so many of his novels, that the boy received the first part of his education. ”