This is a new edition of The Fortune of the Rougons, originally published in 1886 by Vizetelly & Co., of London, translated without abridgment. Part of Adeptio's Unforgettable Classic Series, this is not a facsimile reprint. Obvious typographical errors have been carefully corrected and the entire text has been reset and redesigned by Adeptio Editions to enhance readability, while respecting the original edition. The Fortune of the Rougons is the initial volume of the Rougon-Macquart series. Though it was by no means M. Zola's first essay in fiction, it was undoubtedly his first great bid for genuine literary fame, and the foundation of what must necessarily be regarded as his life-work. The story, set in the fictitious Provençal town of Plassans, tells the story of Silvère and Miette, two idealistic young supporters of the republican resistance to Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's December 1851 coup d'état that created the French Second Empire. The idea of writing the "natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire," extending to a score of volumes, was doubtless suggested to M. Zola by Balzac's immortal Comedie Humaine. He was twenty-eight years of age when this idea first occurred to him; he was fifty-three when he at last sent the manuscript of his concluding volume, Dr. Pascal, to the press. He had spent five-and-twenty years in working out his scheme, persevering with it doggedly and stubbornly, whatever rebuffs he might encounter, whatever jeers and whatever insults might be directed against him by the ignorant, the prejudiced, and the hypocritical. Truth was on the march and nothing could stay it; even as, at the present hour, its march, if slow, none the less continues athwart another and a different crisis of the illustrious novelist's career. E. A. V. MERTON, SURREY: August, 1898. About the Author: Émile-Édouard-Charles-Antoine Zola (1840-1902) was a journalist, a novelist, a playwright, and a political activist. He was one of the most influential French novelists of the 19th century and the founder of the literary and theatrical school of naturalism. Zola was a major figure in the political liberalization of France. During his youth in the south of France, Zola befriended Paul Cézanne, his schoolmate and future renowned Post-Impressionist painter-best known for his incredibly varied painting style that influenced 20th century abstract art. Zola's first book, Contes à Ninon (Stories for Ninon), was a collection of short stories dedicated to his imaginary childhood love, Ninon. He published his debut novel in 1865, La Confession de Claude, an autobiographical work that chronicled a man falling in love with a sex worker. The book drew the attention of the public as well as of the police, and it was banned in the social circles, causing Zola to lose his job. Zola went on to write Thérèse Raquin (1867), his first major novel, which delves into intrigue, adultery, and murder; and the dark love story Madeleine Férat (1868), his last novel before he started his masterful Rougon-Macquart 20-novel series.