Top Search Results for "zola"
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Émile Zola 1840 — 1902
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French writer, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization... read more »
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Doctor Pascal Émile Zola
This final volume in Zola's twenty-book Rougon-Macquart cycle serves in many respects as an epilogue to the series—but it's also a fine tale in its own right. Doctor Pascal, approaching old age, looks back on his life and finds himself asking whether he... read more »
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Thérèse Raquin Émile Zola
One of Zola's most famous realistic novels, Therese Raquin is a clinically observed, sinister tale of adultery and murder among the lower classes in nineteenth-century Parisian society. Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in... read more »
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His Masterpiece Émile Zola
The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist who has come from the provinces to conquer Paris but is conquered instead by the flaws of his own genius. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it is the most... read more »
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L'Assommoir Émile Zola
Abandoned by her lover and left to bring up their two children alone, Gervaise Macquart has to fight to earn an honest living. When she accepts the marriage proposal of Monsieur Coupeau, it seems as though she is on the path to a decent, respectable life at... read more »
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The Debacle Émile Zola
Conservative and working-class, Jean Macquart is an experienced, middle-aged soldier in the French army, who has endured deep personal loss. When he first meets the wealthy and mercurial Maurice Levasseur, who never seems to have suffered, his hatred is... read more »
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Hunger Knut Hamsun
A must-read for fans of modernist literature, Hunger is a literary tour de force that was influenced equally by Dostoyevsky and Zola but made new by author Knut Hamsun's unique creative approach. The novel details the descent into near-starvation of a young... read more »
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Frank Norris 1870 — 1902
Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr. was an American novelist, during the Progressive Era, writing predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague, The Octopus: A Story of California, and The Pit. Norris's work often includes depictions... read more »
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Nana Émile Zola
Prompted by his theories of heredity and environment, Zola set out out to show Nana, the golden fly, rising out of the underworld to feed on society--a predetermined product of her origins. Nana's latent destructiveness is mirrored in the Empire's, and they... read more »
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The Nether World George Gissing
The Nether World, generally regarded as the finest of Gissing's early novels, is a highly dramatic, sometimes violent tale of man's caustic vision shaped by the bitter personal experience of poverty. This tale of intrigue depicts life among the artisans... read more »
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Agatha Christie 1890 — 1976
Agatha Christie was a British crime fiction writer who is considered the world's best-known mystery writer and, apart from William Shakespeare, is the bestselling author of any genre. Her books have sold over two billion copies in the English language and... read more »
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Lourdes Émile Zola
In this moving depiction of a pilgrimage to Lourdes, the master French realist has created a novel of vivid characters and subtle commentary on suffering and the belief in miracles as the last desperate refuge from pain. Based on his own trip to the fabled... read more »
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The Fortune of the Rougons Émile Zola
The first in Zola's famous Rougon-Macquart series of novels. In it we learn how the two branches of the family came about, and the origins of the hereditary weaknesses passed down the generations. Murder, treachery, and greed are the keynotes, and just as... read more »
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The Odd Women George Gissing
Virginia and Alice Madden are odd women', growing old alone in Victorian England with no prospect of finding love. Forced into poverty by the sudden death of their father, they lead lives of quiet desperation in a genteel boarding house in London. The Odd... read more »
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Honoré de Balzac 1799 — 1850
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in... read more »