Emile Zola's "His Masterpiece" is the author's most autobiographical novel, based in part on his boyhood friendship with the painter Paul Cezanne. The painter of "His Masterpiece," Claude Lantier, has much in common with Cezanne, as well as Manet -- the controversial painter of this period whose "realistic" work in some ways mirrors Zola's writing. Claude's friend Pierre Sandoz, the clerk and writer of the novel, is based closely on Zola himself. Not as fortunate in life as was Manet, Claude Lantier's art is misunderstood, and he struggles emotionally and financially. From his ill-fated romance with his beautiful muse Christine to his battle to make his art understood, Claude's story is always compelling. Of particular interest to readers seeking to learn about French Impressionism, as well as for its realistic depiction of Bohemian Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, "His Masterpiece" is among Zola's most readable, and compelling work.

EMILE ZOLA - A NOVELIST AND REFORMER - AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE & WORK by ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY. Originally published in 1904. PREFACE: THIS book is an attempt to chronicle the chief incidents in the life of the late fimile Zola, and to set out the various aims he had in view at different periods of a career which was one of the most strenuous the modern world has known. Virtually all his work is enumerated in the following pages, which, though some are given to argument and criticism, will be found crowded with facts. The result may not be very artistic, but it has been partially my object to show what a tremendous worker Zola was, how incessantly, how stubbornly, he practised the gospel which he preached. An attempt has been made also to show the growth of humani tarian and reforming passions in his heart and mind, passions which became so powerful at last that the novelist in Zola seemed as nothing. Yet I do not think I can be charged with having neglected the literary side of his career. It is that which bulks most largely in the present volume, and that I think is as it should be for while Zola was certainly, and in some respects essentially, a Reformer, the pen was the weapon with which he strove to effect his purposes. Designed more particularly for British and American readers, the book contains some passages which I should have abbreviated omitted perhaps if I had been addressing a French audience. And some subjects, which, in that case, I might have treated more fully, have here been dealt with briefly. For instance, though I have enumerated all the plays that Zola wrote, and most of those founded by others on his works, I have not entered into any real discussion of his viewsrespecting the stage, or of his indirect influence on it in France. I have thought it sufficient to indicate that such influence was exercised. A full examination of Zolas relations with the stage would have materially increased the length of a work which is long already, and which I have been anxious to keep within the scope of one volume a desire which has made my task more difficult than it would have been had I used my materials in all their fulness. But I am distinctly of opinion that biographies in several volumes have nowadays little chance of surviving, even for a moderate number of years. With respect to Zolas share in the Dreyfus case everybody will recognise, I think, how difficult it is to narrate the doings of any one individual in such an intricate mtUe without constant reference to the other combatants and explanation of the many points at issue. Nevertheless, though I fully recognise that the deliverance of Captain Dreyfus was not effected by Zola only, that many other able and whole-hearted men co-operated in that great achievement, have endeavoured to disentangle Zolas share in the battle from that of the others, saying of them only what has seemed to me strictly necessary to explain his actions. I mention this in order that none may think me unjust towards Zolas fellow-fighters. And though in some introductory pages I have endeavoured to indicate the primary causes of the Affair, such as I think them to have been, in the hope that the reader may be better able to understand the fury of the fray, I have not plunged into a discussion of the Affair itself. Besides, M. Dreyfuss case is now once more before the Cour de Cassation, and reserve on a variety of matters hastherefore become advis able. Further, for some years already, a far abler pen than mine, wielded by one of far greater authority, M...

Raised alongside her sickly cousin, Therese lives the quietest of lives. Yet something impetuous and wild stirs within her -- as she learns of herself during moments of escape into the countryside.

But now the family is in Paris, taking over a mercer's shop in the dingy Arcade of the Pont Neuf. To appease the aunt who has cared for her, she marries her pale, nerve-wracked cousin. Then a schoolmate of her husband's appears -- almost his complete opposite, with full voice, jovial laughter -- and a strapping build that givers her nervous pangs to contemplate . . .

And a new Therese, one her aunt or husband has never known, threatens to break free of the restraints that have bound her, all these years

The first of a series of more than twenty novels, "The Fortune of the Rougons" presents the passions and conflicts of two families -- one wealthy and aiming at the aristocracy, the other working-class and in desperate poverty -- in a French village in the years leading up to Napoleon III's coup against the weak French republic and the triumph of his Second Empire. The great political tides of their time flow in, mingling national rivalries with the personal and familial passions of the one town and two families. Zola ties together the triumph of schemers on the national level with the victory of cunning, deceit, and wealth over those hoping merely for the safety of their loves and the chance at an honest life.

Emile Zola was a French novelist and exponent of Naturalism, as well as a noted political liberal. Half of Zola's novels were a set of twenty called Les Rougon-Macquart, set in France's Second Empire. It traces two branches of a single family over a period of generations. "The Fat and the Thin" is the third novel of Zola's twenty volume Rougon-Macquart series.

"The Fat and the Thin" is a study of the teeming life which surrounds the great central markets of Paris. The heroine is Lisa Quenu, a daughter of Antoine Macquart. She has become prosperous, and increasingly selfish. Her brother-in-law Florent has escaped from penal servitude in Cayenne and lives for a short time in her house, but she becomes tired of his presence and ultimately denounces him to the police.

As a critic put it: "It also embraces a powerful allegory, the prose song of the eternal battle between the lean of this world and the fat - a battle in which, as the author shows, the latter always come off successful."

Emile Zola's "His Masterpiece" is the author's most autobiographical novel, based in part on his boyhood friendship with the painter Paul Cezanne. The painter of "His Masterpiece," Claude Lantier, has much in common with Cezanne, as well as Manet -- the controversial painter of this period whose "realistic" work in some ways mirrors Zola's writing. Claude's friend Pierre Sandoz, the clerk and writer of the novel, is based closely on Zola himself. Not as fortunate in life as was Manet, Claude Lantier's art is misunderstood, and he struggles emotionally and financially. From his ill-fated romance with his beautiful muse Christine to his battle to make his art understood, Claude's story is always compelling. Of particular interest to readers seeking to learn about French Impressionism, as well as for its realistic depiction of Bohemian Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, "His Masterpiece" is among Zola's most readable, and compelling work.