Emile Zola Group Read
Welcome to the Emile Zola group read. We hope to both learn from and have fun in discussing Zola's works.
Hint: If you don't want to read spoilers, don't read the comments before you read that portion of the book.
The collective title of these twenty works is Les Rougon-Macquart, subtitled Natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire. These books follow two fictional families living during the Second French Empire (1852-1870).
Emile Zola was born in Paris in 1840 to working class parents. His father died at a young age leaving Zola and his mother destitute. Zola did attend a school in Paris where he met Cezanne and Manet. However, he could not pass the graduation exam, so had to seek employment. He found a job as a clerk at Hachette Publishing and also worked in advertising. In his spare time, he wrote articles and attempted to get them published. This finally paid off in 1865 with La Confession de Claude (Claude’s Confession). It was a semiautobiographical tale which caught the eye of the police. His employer fired him. However, by this time he could meagerly support himself and his mother with his writing. In 1867, [Therese Raquin] netted him a winner and is still his best seller today. In 1868, Zola conceived the idea of writing a 10-book series, somewhat like Balzac's [The Human Comedy]. This eventually grew to 20 books, the last being published in 1893. Zola intensely defended Richard Dreyfuss (see the Dreyfuss Affair). Zola died in a carbon monoxide explosion from a blocked chimney flue, deemed an accident. However, there were many who said that antisemites purposefully blocked the chimney.
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte) was the King of France (1848-1852) and Emperor from 1852-1870. He was the nephew of Napoleon I. He seized power in 1851 when he could not constitutionally be re-elected, proclaiming himself Emperor. He remained emperor until 1871 when he was captured by the Prussians in 1871 at the Battle of Sedan. By many accounts he was a fairly popular monarch, establishing many beautification projects in Paris, which gave craftsmen jobs, as well as building a railway infrastructure. Although authoritarian, France seemed to be stable during this time period. Workers enjoyed the right to organize and strike. Women were permitted to attend universities. It was under Napoleon III that the French first colonized Vietnam. 
Info from: Wikipedia, The Paris Review (Jan 9 2017), History Today (The Strange Death of Emile Zola), Napoleon.org, [His Excellency Eugene Rougon], (introductory notes), Amazon.com, Goodreads
At anytime, please feel free to add to this information!
