Émile Zola: A Very Short Introduction

Émile Zola was a 19th-century novelist and social commentator, and the leader of the literary movement known as ‘naturalism’. Émile Zola: A Very Short Introduction explores key themes in his life and work, looking in detail at several major novels from his twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle. His novels examine the changing cultural landscape of the late 19th century, creating an epic sense of social transformation. In so doing, they opened the novel up to a new realm of subjects, and they embodied a new freedom of expression in their depiction. Zola was often accused of sensationalism and vulgarity; his English publisher Henry Vizetelly was jailed on charges of obscenity.