Les Rougon-Macquart
Encyclopedia
Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French
writer Émile Zola
. Subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire (Natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire), it follows the life of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire
(1852–1870) and is an example of French naturalism
.
Early in his life, Zola discovered the work of Honoré de Balzac
and his famous cycle La Comédie humaine
. This had a profound impact on Zola, who decided to write his own, unique cycle. However, in 1869, he explained in Différences entre Balzac et moi, why he would not make the same kind of book as Balzac:
As a naturalist
writer, Zola was highly interested by science and especially the problem of heredity
and evolution
. He notably read and mentioned the work of the doctor Prosper Lucas
, Claude Bernard
, and Charles Darwin
as references for his own work. This led him to think that people are heavily influenced by heredity
and their environment. He intended to prove this by showing how these two factors could influence the members of a family. In 1871, in the preface of La Fortune des Rougon
, he explained his intent:
In a letter to his publisher, Zola stated his goals for the Rougon-Macquart: "1° To study in a family the questions of blood and environments. [...] 2° To study the whole Second Empire, from the coup d'état to nowadays."
The tree provides the name and date of birth of each member, along with certain properties of his heredity and his life:
Note : The gallery doesn't include the tree made for La Bete Humaine
which included for the first time Jacques, the main protagonist of the book
For example, the entry for Jean Macquart on the 1878 tree read : Jean Macquart, né en 1831 - Election de la mère - Ressemblance physique du père. Soldat (Jean Macquart, born in 1831 - Prepotency of the mother - Physical likeness to his father. Soldier)
To study the Second Empire, Zola thought of each novel as a novel about a specific aspect of the life in his time. For example, in the list he made in 1872, he intended to make a "political novel", a "novel about the defeat", "a scientific novel" and a "novel about the war in Italy". The first three ideas will respectively lead to Son Excellence Eugène Rougon
, La Débâcle
and Le Docteur Pascal. However, the last one will never be made into a book.
Indeed, at the beginning, Zola didn't know exactly how many books he would write. In the first letter to his publisher, he mentioned "ten episodes". In 1872, his list included seventeen novels, but some of them will never be made (such as the one on the war in Italy) and others will be added later on. In 1877, in the preface of L'Assommoir
, he stated that he was going to write "about twenty novels". In the end, he settled for twenty books.
. The last novel in the cycle, Le Docteur Pascal, contains a lengthy chapter that ties up 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.
town Plassans to middle-class parents (members of the French "bourgeoisie
"), she has a slight mental deficiency. She marries Rougon, and gives birth to a son, Pierre Rougon. However, she also has a lover, the smuggler Macquart, with whom she has two children: Ursule and Antoine Macquart. This means that the family is split in three branches:
Because Zola believed that everyone is driven by their heredity, Adelaide's children show signs of the their mother's original deficiency. For the Rougon, this manifests as a drive for power, money, and excess in life. For the Macquarts, who live in a difficult environment, it is manifested by alcoholism (L'Assommoir
), prostitution (Nana
), and homicide (La Bête humaine
). Even the Mourets are marked to a certain degree; in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
, the priest Serge Mouret has to fight his desire for a young woman.
As a political reflection of life under Napoleon III, the novel La Conquête de Plassans looks at how an ambitious priest infiltrates a small Provence town one family at a time, starting with the Rougons. La Débâcle takes place during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and depicts Napoleon III's downfall. Son Excellence also looks at political life, and Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames look at middle class life in Paris.
Note that Zola wrote the novels after the fall of Napoleon III.
Publication order
A recommended reading order
Recent English translations (post-1970) are available for fourteen of the novels:
1. The Fortune of the Rougons (La Fortune des Rougon)
2. The Kill (La Curée)
3. The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris)
5. The Sin of Father Mouret (La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret)
7. The Dram Shop (L'Assommoir)
9. Nana
10. Pot Luck (Pot-Bouille)
11. The Ladies Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames)
13. Germinal
14. The Masterpiece (L'Oeuvre)
15. The Earth (La Terre)
16. The Dream (Le Rêve)
17. The Beast Within (La Bete Humaine)
19. The Debacle (La Debacle)
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writer Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
. Subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire (Natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire), it follows the life of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
(1852–1870) and is an example of French naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
.
Influences
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
and his famous cycle La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
. This had a profound impact on Zola, who decided to write his own, unique cycle. However, in 1869, he explained in Différences entre Balzac et moi, why he would not make the same kind of book as Balzac:
"In one word, his work wants to be the mirror of the contemporary society. My work, mine, will be something else entirely. The scope will be narrower. I don't want to describe the contemporary society, but a single family, showing how the race is modified by the environment. (...) My big task is to be strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist."
As a naturalist
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
writer, Zola was highly interested by science and especially the problem of heredity
Heredity
Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve...
and evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. He notably read and mentioned the work of the doctor Prosper Lucas
Prosper Lucas
Prosper Lucas was a French medical doctor, brother of Pierre-Hippolyte Lucas and specialist in the study of heredity. For which he wrote Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'hérédité naturelle - full title - Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'hérédité naturelle dans les états de...
, Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...
, and Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
as references for his own work. This led him to think that people are heavily influenced by heredity
Heredity
Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve...
and their environment. He intended to prove this by showing how these two factors could influence the members of a family. In 1871, in the preface of La Fortune des Rougon
La Fortune des Rougon
La Fortune des Rougon, originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart...
, he explained his intent:
"The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passions—briefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity—whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice."
Preparations
Genealogy and heredity
Since his first goal was to show how heredity can affect the lives of descendants, Zola started working on the Rougon-Macquart by drawing the family tree for the Rougon-Macquart. Though it was to be modified many times over the years, with some members appearing or disappearing, the original tree shows how Zola planned the whole cycle before writing the first book.The tree provides the name and date of birth of each member, along with certain properties of his heredity and his life:
- The prepotency : The prepotency is a term used by the doctor LucasProsper LucasProsper Lucas was a French medical doctor, brother of Pierre-Hippolyte Lucas and specialist in the study of heredity. For which he wrote Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'hérédité naturelle - full title - Traité philosophique et physiologique de l'hérédité naturelle dans les états de...
. It is part of a biological theory that tries to determine how heredity transmits traits through generations. Zola apply this theory to the mental state of his protagonists and uses terms from the work of the doctor Lucas: Election du père (Prepotency of the father, meaning the father is the main influence on the child), Election de la mère (Prepotency of the mother), Mélange soudure (Fusion of the 2 parents) or Innéité (No influence from either parent). - Physical likeness: Whether the member looks like his mother or his father.
- Biographical information: his job and important facts of his life. Additionally, for members still living at the end of Le Docteur Pascal, their place of living at the end of the cycle may be included. Otherwise, the date of death is included.
Note : The gallery doesn't include the tree made for La Bete Humaine
La Bête humaine
La Bête Humaine is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. The story has been adapted for the cinema on several occasions. It is based around the railway between Paris and Le Havre in the 19th century and is a tense, psychological thriller....
which included for the first time Jacques, the main protagonist of the book
For example, the entry for Jean Macquart on the 1878 tree read : Jean Macquart, né en 1831 - Election de la mère - Ressemblance physique du père. Soldat (Jean Macquart, born in 1831 - Prepotency of the mother - Physical likeness to his father. Soldier)
The study of the Second Empire
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon is the sixth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in 1876 in Le Siècle before being published in novel form by Charpentier. It was translated into English by Mary Neal Sherwood in 1880, by Kenward Philp in 1884, by Ernest A...
, La Débâcle
La Débâcle
La Débâcle is a novel by Émile Zola published in 1892, the penultimate in les Rougon-Macquart series. The story is set against the background of the political and military events that ended the reign of Napoléon III and the Second Empire in 1870, in particular the Franco-Prussian War, the Battle...
and Le Docteur Pascal. However, the last one will never be made into a book.
Indeed, at the beginning, Zola didn't know exactly how many books he would write. In the first letter to his publisher, he mentioned "ten episodes". In 1872, his list included seventeen novels, but some of them will never be made (such as the one on the war in Italy) and others will be added later on. In 1877, in the preface of L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
, he stated that he was going to write "about twenty novels". In the end, he settled for twenty books.
Story
Almost all of the main protagonists for each novel are introduced in the first book, La Fortune des RougonLa Fortune des Rougon
La Fortune des Rougon, originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart...
. The last novel in the cycle, Le Docteur Pascal, contains a lengthy chapter that ties up 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.
The Rougon-Macquart
The Rougon-Macquart family begins with Adelaïde Fouque. Born in 1768 in the fictional ProvençalProvence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
town Plassans to middle-class parents (members of the French "bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
"), she has a slight mental deficiency. She marries Rougon, and gives birth to a son, Pierre Rougon. However, she also has a lover, the smuggler Macquart, with whom she has two children: Ursule and Antoine Macquart. This means that the family is split in three branches:
- The first, legitimate, one is the Rougons branch. They are the most successful of the children. Most of them live in the upper classes (such as Eugene Rougon who becomes a minister) or/and have a good education (such as Pascal, the doctor which is the main protagonist of Le Docteur Pascal).
- The second branch is the low-born Macquarts. They are blue-collar workers (L'AssommoirL'AssommoirL'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
), farmers (La TerreLa TerreLa Terre is a novel by Émile Zola, published in 1887. It is the fifteenth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. The action takes place in a rural community in La Beauce, an area of northern France...
), or soldiers (La DébâcleLa DébâcleLa Débâcle is a novel by Émile Zola published in 1892, the penultimate in les Rougon-Macquart series. The story is set against the background of the political and military events that ended the reign of Napoléon III and the Second Empire in 1870, in particular the Franco-Prussian War, the Battle...
). - The third branch is the Mourets (the name of Ursule Macquart's husband). They are a mix of the others two. They are middle-class people and tend to live more balanced lives than the others.
Because Zola believed that everyone is driven by their heredity, Adelaide's children show signs of the their mother's original deficiency. For the Rougon, this manifests as a drive for power, money, and excess in life. For the Macquarts, who live in a difficult environment, it is manifested by alcoholism (L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
), prostitution (Nana
Nana (novel)
Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, the object of which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire", the subtitle of the series.-Origins:A year...
), and homicide (La Bête humaine
La Bête humaine
La Bête Humaine is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. The story has been adapted for the cinema on several occasions. It is based around the railway between Paris and Le Havre in the 19th century and is a tense, psychological thriller....
). Even the Mourets are marked to a certain degree; in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret is the fifth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Viciously anticlerical in tone, it follows on from the horrific events at the end of La Conquête de Plassans, focussing this time on a remote Provençal backwater village.The plot centres on the...
, the priest Serge Mouret has to fight his desire for a young woman.
┌─ Eugène Rougon ┌─ Maxime Rougon Saccard ──── Charles Rougon Saccard
│ 1811-? │ 1840-1873 1857-1873
│ │
├─ Pascal Rougon ├─ Clotilde Rougon Saccard ── A child
│ 1813-1873 │ 1847-? 1874-?
│ │
┌─ Pierre Rougon ────┼─ Aristide Rougon ───┴─ Victor Rougon Saccard
│ 1787-1870 │ 1815-? 1853-?
│ │
│ ├─ Sidonie Rougon ────── Angélique Rougon Saccard
│ │ 1818-? 1851-1869
│ │
│ └─ Marthe Rougon ───┐ ┌─ Octave Mouret ──── Two children
│ 1819-1864 │ │ 1840-
│ │ │
│ ├─┼─ Serge Mouret ───── A son and a daughter
│ │ │ 1841-?
│ │ │
│ ┌─ François Mouret ─┘ └─ Désirée Mouret
│ │ 1817-1864 1844-?
│ │
Adélaïde Fouque ─┼─ Ursule Macquart ──┼─ Hélène Mouret ────── Jeanne Grandjean
1768-1873 │ 1791-1839 │ 1824-? 1842-1855
│ │
│ └─ Silvère Mouret
│ 1834-1851
│
│ ┌─ Lisa Macquart ─────── Pauline Quenu
│ │ 1827-1863 1852-?
│ │
│ │ ┌─ Claude Lantier ─── Jacques-Louis Lantier
│ │ │ 1842-1870 1860-1869
│ │ │
└─ Antoine Macquart ─┼─ Gervaise Macquart ─┼─ Jacques Lantier
1789-1873 │ 1829-1869 │ 1844-1870
│ │
│ ├─ Étienne Lantier ── A daughter
│ │ 1846-?
│ │
│ └─ Anna Coupeau dite Nana ───── Louis Coupeau named Louiset
│ 1852-1870 1867-1870
│
└─ Jean Macquart ─────── Two children
1831-?
View of France under Napoleon III
As a naturalist, Zola also gave detailed descriptions of urban and rural settings, and different types of businesses. Le Ventre de Paris, for example, has a detailed description of the cheese market in Paris at the time.As a political reflection of life under Napoleon III, the novel La Conquête de Plassans looks at how an ambitious priest infiltrates a small Provence town one family at a time, starting with the Rougons. La Débâcle takes place during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and depicts Napoleon III's downfall. Son Excellence also looks at political life, and Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames look at middle class life in Paris.
Note that Zola wrote the novels after the fall of Napoleon III.
List of the novels
In an "Introduction" of his last novel, Le Docteur Pascal, Zola gave a recommended reading order, although it is not required, each novel stands on its own.Publication order
- La Fortune des RougonLa Fortune des RougonLa Fortune des Rougon, originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart...
(1871) - La CuréeLa CuréeLa Curée is the second novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It deals with property speculation and the lives of the extremely wealthy Nouveau riche of the Second French Empire, against the backdrop of Baron Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris in the 1850s and...
(1871-2) - Le Ventre de ParisLe Ventre de ParisLe Ventre de Paris is the third novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It is set in and around Les Halles, the enormous, busy central market of 19th Century Paris. Les Halles, rebuilt in cast iron and glass during the Second Empire was a landmark of modernity in the city,...
(1873) - La Conquête de PlassansLa Conquête de PlassansLa Conquête de Plassans is the fourth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. In many ways a sequel to the first novel in the cycle, La Fortune des Rougon , this novel is again centred on the fictional Provençal town of Plassans and its plot revolves around a sinister...
(1874) - La Faute de l'Abbé MouretLa Faute de l'Abbé MouretLa Faute de l'Abbé Mouret is the fifth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Viciously anticlerical in tone, it follows on from the horrific events at the end of La Conquête de Plassans, focussing this time on a remote Provençal backwater village.The plot centres on the...
(1875) - Son Excellence Eugène RougonSon Excellence Eugène RougonSon Excellence Eugène Rougon is the sixth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in 1876 in Le Siècle before being published in novel form by Charpentier. It was translated into English by Mary Neal Sherwood in 1880, by Kenward Philp in 1884, by Ernest A...
(1876) - L'AssommoirL'AssommoirL'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
(1877) - Une Page d'amourUne Page d'amourUne page d'amour is the eighth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola, set among the petite bourgeoisie in Second Empire suburban Paris. It was first serialized between December 11, 1877, and April 4, 1878, in Le Bien public, before being published in novel form by Charpentier in April...
(1878) - NanaNana (novel)Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, the object of which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire", the subtitle of the series.-Origins:A year...
(1880) - Pot-BouillePot-BouillePot-Bouille is the tenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized between January and April 1882 in the periodical Le Gaulois before being published in book form by Charpentier in 1883....
(1882) - Au Bonheur des DamesAu Bonheur des DamesAu Bonheur des Dames is the eleventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was first serialized in the periodical Gil Blas and published in novel form by Charpentier in 1883....
(1883) - La Joie de vivreLa Joie de vivreLa joie de vivre is the twelfth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in the periodical Gil Blas in 1883 before being published in book form by Charpentier in February 1884. It was translated into English by Ernest A...
(1884) - Germinal (1885)
- L'ŒuvreL'ŒuvreL'œuvre is the fourteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was first serialized in the periodical Gil Blas beginning in December 1885 before being published in novel form by Charpentier in 1886....
(1886) - La TerreLa TerreLa Terre is a novel by Émile Zola, published in 1887. It is the fifteenth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. The action takes place in a rural community in La Beauce, an area of northern France...
(1887) - Le RêveLe Rêve (novel)Le rêve is the sixteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola.The novel was published by Charpentier in October 1888 and translated into English by Eliza E. Chase as The Dream in 1893...
(1888) - La Bête humaineLa Bête humaineLa Bête Humaine is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. The story has been adapted for the cinema on several occasions. It is based around the railway between Paris and Le Havre in the 19th century and is a tense, psychological thriller....
(1890) - L'ArgentL'ArgentL'Argent is the eighteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in the periodical Gil Blas beginning in November 1890 before being published in novel form by Charpentier et Fasquelle in March 1891. It was translated into English by Benjamin Tucker in 1891 and by...
(1891) - La DébâcleLa DébâcleLa Débâcle is a novel by Émile Zola published in 1892, the penultimate in les Rougon-Macquart series. The story is set against the background of the political and military events that ended the reign of Napoléon III and the Second Empire in 1870, in particular the Franco-Prussian War, the Battle...
(1892) - Le Docteur Pascal (1893)
A recommended reading order
- La Fortune des RougonLa Fortune des RougonLa Fortune des Rougon, originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart...
(1871) - Son Excellence Eugène RougonSon Excellence Eugène RougonSon Excellence Eugène Rougon is the sixth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in 1876 in Le Siècle before being published in novel form by Charpentier. It was translated into English by Mary Neal Sherwood in 1880, by Kenward Philp in 1884, by Ernest A...
(1876) - La CuréeLa CuréeLa Curée is the second novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It deals with property speculation and the lives of the extremely wealthy Nouveau riche of the Second French Empire, against the backdrop of Baron Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris in the 1850s and...
(1871-2) - L'ArgentL'ArgentL'Argent is the eighteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in the periodical Gil Blas beginning in November 1890 before being published in novel form by Charpentier et Fasquelle in March 1891. It was translated into English by Benjamin Tucker in 1891 and by...
(1891) - Le RêveLe Rêve (novel)Le rêve is the sixteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola.The novel was published by Charpentier in October 1888 and translated into English by Eliza E. Chase as The Dream in 1893...
(1888) - La Conquête de PlassansLa Conquête de PlassansLa Conquête de Plassans is the fourth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. In many ways a sequel to the first novel in the cycle, La Fortune des Rougon , this novel is again centred on the fictional Provençal town of Plassans and its plot revolves around a sinister...
(1874) - Pot-BouillePot-BouillePot-Bouille is the tenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized between January and April 1882 in the periodical Le Gaulois before being published in book form by Charpentier in 1883....
(1882) - Au Bonheur des DamesAu Bonheur des DamesAu Bonheur des Dames is the eleventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was first serialized in the periodical Gil Blas and published in novel form by Charpentier in 1883....
(1883) - La Faute de l'Abbé MouretLa Faute de l'Abbé MouretLa Faute de l'Abbé Mouret is the fifth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Viciously anticlerical in tone, it follows on from the horrific events at the end of La Conquête de Plassans, focussing this time on a remote Provençal backwater village.The plot centres on the...
(1875) - Une Page d'amourUne Page d'amourUne page d'amour is the eighth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola, set among the petite bourgeoisie in Second Empire suburban Paris. It was first serialized between December 11, 1877, and April 4, 1878, in Le Bien public, before being published in novel form by Charpentier in April...
(1878) - Le Ventre de ParisLe Ventre de ParisLe Ventre de Paris is the third novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It is set in and around Les Halles, the enormous, busy central market of 19th Century Paris. Les Halles, rebuilt in cast iron and glass during the Second Empire was a landmark of modernity in the city,...
(1873) - La Joie de vivreLa Joie de vivreLa joie de vivre is the twelfth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was serialized in the periodical Gil Blas in 1883 before being published in book form by Charpentier in February 1884. It was translated into English by Ernest A...
(1884) - L'AssommoirL'AssommoirL'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
(1877) - L'ŒuvreL'ŒuvreL'œuvre is the fourteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It was first serialized in the periodical Gil Blas beginning in December 1885 before being published in novel form by Charpentier in 1886....
(1886) - La Bête humaineLa Bête humaineLa Bête Humaine is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. The story has been adapted for the cinema on several occasions. It is based around the railway between Paris and Le Havre in the 19th century and is a tense, psychological thriller....
(1890) - Germinal (1885)
- NanaNana (novel)Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, the object of which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire", the subtitle of the series.-Origins:A year...
(1880) - La TerreLa TerreLa Terre is a novel by Émile Zola, published in 1887. It is the fifteenth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. The action takes place in a rural community in La Beauce, an area of northern France...
(1887) - La DébâcleLa DébâcleLa Débâcle is a novel by Émile Zola published in 1892, the penultimate in les Rougon-Macquart series. The story is set against the background of the political and military events that ended the reign of Napoléon III and the Second Empire in 1870, in particular the Franco-Prussian War, the Battle...
(1892) - Le Docteur Pascal (1893)
English translation
All 20 of the novels have been translated into English under various titles and editions, but many of the translations are out of print, outdated and/or censored.Recent English translations (post-1970) are available for fourteen of the novels:
1. The Fortune of the Rougons (La Fortune des Rougon)
- Brian NelsonBrian Nelson (literature professor)Brian Nelson is a professor of French Studies at Monash University, Melbourne and editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies. Nelson graduated with an undergraduate degree from Cambridge University and did postgraduate work at Oxford University. Before going to Monash he taught at the...
(work in progress)
2. The Kill (La Curée)
- Brian Nelson (Oxford 2004)
- Arthur Goldhammer (Modern Library 2004)
3. The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris)
- Brian Nelson (Oxford 2007)
- Mark KurlanskyMark KurlanskyMark Kurlansky is an American journalist and writer of general interest non-fiction. He is especially known for titles on eclectic topics, such as cod or salt....
(Modern Library 2009)
5. The Sin of Father Mouret (La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret)
- Sandy Petrey (Prentice-Hall 1969)
7. The Dram Shop (L'Assommoir)
- Margaret Mauldon (Oxford 1995)
- Robin Buss (Penguin 2000)
9. Nana
- Douglas Parmee (Oxford 1992)
- George Holden (Penguin 1972)
10. Pot Luck (Pot-Bouille)
- Brian Nelson (Oxford 1999)
11. The Ladies Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames)
- Brian Nelson (Oxford 1995)
- Robin Buss (Penguin 2001)
13. Germinal
- Roger PearsonRoger Pearson (linguist)Roger Pearson is a professor of French at the University of Oxford and a fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. His research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth century French literature and has worked particularly on Voltaire, Stendhal, Zola, Maupassant and Mallarmé...
(Penguin 2004) - Peter Collier (Oxford 1993)
- Stanley Hochman (Signet 1970)
14. The Masterpiece (L'Oeuvre)
- Thomas Walton (Oxford 1993)
15. The Earth (La Terre)
- Douglas Parmee (Penguin 1980)
16. The Dream (Le Rêve)
- Michael Glencross (Peter Owen Ltd 2005)
- Andrew Brown (Hesperus PressHesperus PressHesperus Press is an independent publisher based in London, UK. It was founded in 2001 by Alessandro Gallenzi and Elisabetta Minervini, who went on to found Alma Books in 2005....
2005)
17. The Beast Within (La Bete Humaine)
- Leonard Tancock (Penguin 1977)
- Roger PearsonRoger Pearson (linguist)Roger Pearson is a professor of French at the University of Oxford and a fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. His research focuses on eighteenth and nineteenth century French literature and has worked particularly on Voltaire, Stendhal, Zola, Maupassant and Mallarmé...
(Oxford 1999) - Roger Whitehouse (Penguin 2008)
19. The Debacle (La Debacle)
- Leonard Tancock (Penguin 1973)
- Elinor Dorday (Oxford 2000)
External links
- The Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola (for English-speaking Readers) provides an American enthusiast's introduction, insights and synopses.