Work (1901) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Published as the second installment of his Les Quatre Évangiles, a series of four novels inspired by the New Testament gospels and aimed at investigating prominent social issues, Work was the last of Zola’s novels to be published during his lifetime. Combining his trademark naturalist style with an interest in Charles Fourier’s theory of socialist utopianism, Zola crafts a story of hardship and perseverance without losing sight of humanity. Luc Fremont, an engineer, travels to a town at the heart of an important French industrial region. While staying in Beaumont, he is struck by the widespread poverty suffered by the working class, the very people whose expertise and labor is essential to the economic health of the nation. Calling upon an old friend, who owns a local steelworks, Luc enters into a deal in order to manage the production of La Crêcherie under an experimental cooperative model. With his determination and the hard work of the people, Luc establishes the steelworks as a functioning independent city-state, known for its profit-sharing, free housing, and focus on the lives of its workers and their families. As news of their success begins to spread, similar experiments take place across France and the globe, harnessing the transformative power of industry for the sake of people, not profit. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Émile Zola’s Work is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Lourdes (1894) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Lourdes is the first installment in Zola’s celebrated Three Cities Trilogy. Published toward the end of Zola’s career, the trilogy is an ambitious, sweeping study of one man’s struggle with faith in political, religious, and social life. Following his protagonist Abbé Pierre Froment, Zola provides a striking portrait of the soul of modern man in crisis with itself and with an ever-changing world. Lourdes opens as Abbé Froment departs on a journey from Paris to the holy city of Lourdes. Accompanied by his childhood love, a woman who was paralyzed in an accident at the age of thirteen, Froment hopes to rediscover his faith and to reestablish his position in a beleaguered Catholic Church. There, they meet a series of diverse pilgrims, all of them dissatisfied, all of them searching for something to change or to hold onto. For Froment, this journey begins as a way to help an old friend and becomes a chance at redeeming his wayward soul. At Lourdes, surrounded by desperate, yet faithful people, he begins to remember what brought him to God in the first place. Inspired by his experiences there, he wonders if one priest could change the Church for the better. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Émile Zola’s Lourdes is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Truth (1903) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Published as the third installment of his Les Quatre Évangiles, a series of four novels inspired by the New Testament gospels and aimed at investigating prominent social issues, Truth was the last of Zola’s novels to be published when it appeared the year after his death. Combining his trademark naturalist style with aspects of his experience advocating on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew falsely convicted of spying, Zola crafts a story of prejudice and institutional corruption without losing sight of humanity. In a rural village in France, a young boy is discovered murdered and sexually assaulted in his own bedroom. Shocked and outraged, the people of the village initially turn toward a local vagrant as a suspect. As his innocence becomes more and more apparent, however, a story begins to circulate blaming the boy’s uncle, a Jewish schoolmaster, who supposedly resented his brother’s marriage to a Catholic woman. Spurred on by the local church, run by the Christian Brothers, the people stoke the flames of antisemitism while alienating the town’s growing secular minority in order to scapegoat an influential—and innocent—Jewish man. Truth is a terrifying, essential novel that looks unsparingly at the prejudices rampant in European society only decades before the Holocaust. Zola’s final novel is a thrilling examination of the interconnected nature of politics, religion, and the press, and a rallying cry for those brave souls who dare to take a stand against violence and oppression. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Émile Zola’s Truth is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Rome (1896) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Rome is the second installment in Zola’s celebrated Three Cities Trilogy. Published toward the end of Zola’s career, the trilogy is an ambitious, sweeping study of one man’s struggle with faith in political, religious, and social life. Following his protagonist Abbé Pierre Froment, Zola provides a striking portrait of the soul of modern man in crisis with itself and with an ever-changing world. In Rome, Abbé Froment—inspired by his pilgrimage to the holy city of Lourdes—writes a book on socialistic Catholicism aimed at reforming the Church in order to benefit its most vulnerable subjects. Facing censure from Vatican officials, he travels to the heart of the Catholic world, where he hopes to gain an audience with the Pope in order to vindicate himself. Filled with hope, and perhaps more than a little naïve, Froment believes he can inspire radical institutional changes for the Church. When he gets to Rome, however, he finds himself waiting endlessly for his chance to arrive. As days turn into weeks, and weeks turn to months, Pierre grows tired of the city’s ancient beauty, which never fails to remind him of his fate as a member of an institution brought low by its commitment to tradition. Soon, he is faced with a choice—to continue to hope for change, or to change his own, small life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Émile Zola’s Rome is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

Paris (1898) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. Paris is the final installment in Zola’s celebrated Three Cities Trilogy. Published toward the end of Zola’s career, the trilogy is an ambitious, sweeping study of one man’s struggle with faith in political, religious, and social life. Following his protagonist Abbé Pierre Froment, Zola provides a striking portrait of the soul of modern man in crisis with itself and with an ever-changing world. Paris finds Abbé Froment back in his home city, disheartened in his life and in his faith. Having failed in his quest to reform the Church, he turns his attention from institutional change to helping the poor and sick. As his reputation as an almsgiver grows, he draws the ire of his Church superiors, who are wary of his socialistic ideals. Regardless, Pierre dedicates himself to his subjects, taking in the poverty and destitution of a great city’s slums and forgetting his former ambitions. When a near-death experience involving an anarchist bombing brings him back in touch with his estranged brother Guillaume, Froment begins to wonder whether his fate must rely on an institution unwilling, and perhaps unable, to change. In the thrilling conclusion to his Three Cities Trilogy, Zola explores the meaning of faith in a faithless world through the eyes of one good man. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Émile Zola’s Paris is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.