Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work

by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

Ernest Alfred Vizetelly knew Émile Zola personally, translated many of his novels and helped him during his exile in England, and he published this biography in 1904, two years after the novelist's death. It follows Zola from his family origins and his years of poverty and literary drudgery in Paris through the Rougon-Macquart series, the scandals over his naturalist novels, his later cycles and his courageous intervention in the Dreyfus affair with J'accuse. Vizetelly sets out to show how tirelessly Zola worked and how his humanitarian convictions grew, and he surveys nearly all of his writings. Written with warmth and inside knowledge, it is a valuable portrait of the writer and his time. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.