The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris) is the third novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart, first published in 1873. It is a novel of the teeming life which surrounds the great central markets of Paris. The book was originally translated into English by Henry Vizetelly and published in 1888 under the title Fat and Thin. After Vizetelly's imprisonment for obscene libel the novel was one of those revised and expurgated by his son, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. The heroine is Lisa Quenu, a daughter of Antoine Macquart. She has become prosperous, and with prosperity her selfishness has increased. Her brother-in-law Florent had escaped from penal servitude in Cayenne and lived for a short time in her house, but she became tired of his presence and ultimately denounced him to the police. Émile Zola (1840 – 1902) was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France.

La Debacle is the penultimate novel in Zola's great Rougon-Macquart cycle. A stirring account of profound friendship between two soldiers from opposite ends of the class divide during the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1.

In the novels of Emile Zola, the pain and horror of working class life was pushed into the drawing rooms of polite society. Zola set out to shock and to question the assumptions of fiction and of comfortable, settled lives. The impact of his writing was far wider than France, and his attacks on the pillars of society gave him an international reputation. First published in 1985, this biography of Zola does much more than simply describe Zola as a writer, and his literary impact. It brings together the many strands of Zola’s life and creates an impression of a remarkable, if often exasperating individualist. This book will be of interest to those studying the works of Emile Zola and more broadly nineteenth-century and French literature.

French realism's immortal siren crawled from the gutter to the heights of society, devouring men and squandering fortunes along the way. Zola's 1880s classic is among the first modern novels.