[Gutenberg 56687] • The Soil (La terre): A Realistic Novel

Book This is a new edition of "The Soil (La Terre)," originally published in 1888 by Vizetelly and the dark love story Madeleine Ferat (1868), his last novel before he started his masterful Rougon-Macquart 20-novel series. Emile 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 The Fortune of the Rougons (La Fortune des Rougon) originally published in 1871 and the first novel of the series; The Rush For The Spoil (La Curee), in 1872; The Conquest of Plassans (La Conquete de Plassans), in 1874; The Assommoir - The Prelude to Nana (L'Assommoir), in 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! (Pot-Bouille), in 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 Piping Hot!, meets Caroline Hedouin, the owner of a small silk shop; Germinal (1885), the thirteenth novel in the series, which depicts the mining industry and is considered by some as his masterpiece; and The Soil (La Terre), in 1887-all published by Adeptio Editions. Zola's open letter to French president Felix 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.