Émile Zola (1840-1902), prominent leader of French Naturalism in novels and drama, was also an environmentalist, way ahead of his time. He had a great love and respect for animals of all kinds and shapes. Throughout this book, you will discover his love from the smallest creatures: ants, spiders, bugs and frogs, bats and rats, all the way to birds, rabbits, cats, dogs, donkeys, cows and bulls, horses, and even zoo lions. The stories, which are partly fictional but mostly realistic, clearly show his love of and admiration for most animals. In the process of telling them, he inter-mingled some humorous episodes. Who wouldn't laugh at the description of Gédéon, his donkey, getting drunk after savoring a bucket of red wine and raising havoc in his stable? And who wouldn't cry at the death of a dear pet? The stories in this book have been gathered after reading his complete works (fifteen volumes of more than 18,000 pages of Émile Zola: Oeuvres Complètes, edited by Henri Mitterand, the most eminent scholar of Zola's works, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Columbia University in New York City, in the 'Cercle du Livre Précieux' edition).

It is the evening of 18 July 1898 and the world-renowned novelist Émile Zola is on the run. His crime? Taking on the highest powers in the land with his open letter 'J'accuse' and losing. Forced to leave Paris, with nothing but the clothes he is standing in and a nightshirt wrapped in newspaper, Zola flees to England with no idea when he will return.This is the little-known story of his time in exile. Rosen has traced Zola's footsteps from the Gare du Nord to London, examining the significance of this year. The Disappearance of Zola offers an intriguing insight into the mind, the loves, the politics and the work of the great writer.

From the perspective of the family's patriarch, 70-year-old Louis Roubien, Zola provides the reader with emotionally charged and detailed descriptions of a large family's desperate struggle against the rising flood waters and of the destruction of their farm.

We know the brilliant writer of the Rougon-Macquart series and the committed author of the open letter "J'accuse...!" but what do we know about his private life? Who were the women in his life? How did they help him to accomplish his work? At what sacrifice? A remarkable fresco that takes us back to the end of the 19th century, to the heart of an ever-changing France and the city of Paris, full of artists and workers.