[Gutenberg 5135] • The Fortune of the Rougons

• Two of Emile Zola's best-known books are bound together in this Kindle edition: The Fortune of the Rougons & The Ladies Paradise

The Fortune of the Rougons

The first novel in Émile Zola's 20-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. The novel has a large cast of characters who become central figures in later novels. It is partly an account of the December 1851 coup d'état that created the French Second Empire under Napoleon III as experienced in a large provincial town in southern France.

The Ladies' Paradise: A Realistic Novel (1886)

The novel tells the story of Denise Baudu, 20, who moves to Paris with her brothers and works as a saleswoman at a tedious department store called Au Bonheur des Dames. Her life is held in contrast to Octave Mouret, Au Bonheur des Dames's owner, whose retail empire threatens the area’s shops. Despite his distain for women, Octave finds he is falling in love,

About The Author

Émile Zola

Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (1840 – 1902) was a French writer and a contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.