Les Rougon-Macquart
Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola. Subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire ("Natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire"), it follows the lives of the members of the two titular branches of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire (1852–1870) and is one of the most prominent works of the French naturalism literary movement. Influences. Early in his life, Zola discovered the work of Honoré de Balzac and his famous cycle "La Comédie  humaine". This had a profound impact on Zola, who decided to write his own, unique cycle. However, in 1869, he explained in "Différences entre Balzac et moi", why he would not make the same kind of book as Balzac: In one word, his work wants to be the mirror of the contemporary society. My work, mine, will be something else entirely. The scope will be narrower. I don't want to describe the contemporary society, but a single family, showing how the race is modified by the environment. (...) My big task is to be strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist. As a  naturalist writer, Zola was highly interested by science and especially the problem of heredity and evolution. He notably read and mentioned the work of the doctor Prosper Lucas, Claude Bernard, and Charles Darwin as references for his own work. This led him to think that people are heavily influenced by heredity and their environment. He intended to prove this by showing how these two factors could influence the members of a family. In 1871, in the preface of "La Fortune des Rougon", he explained his intent: The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family which I propose  to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passions—briefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity—whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice. Preparations. In a letter to his publisher, Zola stated his goals for the Rougon-Macquart: "1° To study in a  family the questions of blood and environments. [...] 2° To study the whole Second Empire, from the coup d'état to nowadays." Genealogy and heredity. Since his first goal was to show how heredity can affect the lives of descendants, Zola started working on the Rougon-Macquart by drawing the family tree for the Rougon-Macquart. Though it was to be modified many times over the years, with some members appearing or disappearing, the original tree shows how Zola planned the whole cycle before writing the first book. The tree provides the name and date of birth of each member, along  with certain properties of his heredity and his life: "Note : The gallery does not include the tree made for "La Bete Humaine" which included for the first time Jacques, the main protagonist of the book" For example, the entry for Jean Macquart on the 1878 tree read : "Jean Macquart, né en 1831 - Election de la mère - Ressemblance physique du père. Soldat" (Jean Macquart, born in 1831 - Prepotency of the mother - Physical likeness to his father. Soldier) The study of the Second Empire. To study the Second Empire, Zola thought of each novel as a novel about a specific aspect of  the life in his time. For example, in the list he made in 1872, he intended to make a "political novel", a "novel about the defeat", "a scientific novel", and a "novel about the war in Italy". The first three ideas led to "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon", "La Débâcle", and "Le Docteur Pascal", respectively. However, the last idea would never be made into a book. Indeed, at the beginning, Zola didn't know exactly how many books he would write. In the first letter to his publisher, he mentioned "ten episodes". In 1872, his list included seventeen novels, but some  of them would never be made (such as the one on the war in Italy), whereas others were to be added later on. In 1877, in the preface of "L'Assommoir", he stated that he was going to write "about twenty novels". In the end, he settled for twenty books. Story. Almost all of the main protagonists for each novel are introduced in the first book, "La Fortune des Rougon". The last novel in the cycle, "Le Docteur Pascal", contains a lengthy chapter that ties up loose ends from the other novels. In between, there is no "best sequence" in which  to read the novels in the cycle, as they are not in chronological order and indeed are impossible to arrange into such an order. Although some of the novels in the cycle are direct sequels to one another, many of them follow on directly from the last chapters of "La Fortune des Rougon", and there is a great deal of chronological overlap between the books; there are numerous recurring characters and several of them make "guest" appearances in novels centered on other members of the family. The Rougon-Macquart. The Rougon-Macquart family begins with Adelaïde Fouque. Born in 1768  in the fictional Provençal town Plassans to middle-class parents (members of the French "bourgeoisie"), she has a slight intellectual disability. She marries Rougon, and gives birth to a son, Pierre Rougon. However, she also has a lover, the smuggler Macquart, with whom she has two children: Ursule and Antoine Macquart. This means that the family is split in three branches: Because Zola believed that everyone is driven by their heredity, Adelaide's children show signs of their mother's original deficiency. For the Rougon, this manifests as a drive for power, money, and excess in life. For the Macquarts , who live in a difficult environment, it is manifested by alcoholism ("L'Assommoir"), prostitution ("Nana"), and homicide ("La Bête humaine"). Even the Mourets are marked to a certain degree; in "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret", the priest Serge Mouret has to fight his desire for a young woman. View of France under Napoleon III. As a naturalist, Zola also gave detailed descriptions of urban and rural settings, and different types of businesses. "Le Ventre de Paris", for example, has a detailed description of the central market in Paris at the time. As a political reflection of life under Napoleon III, the  novel "La Conquête de Plassans" looks at how an ambitious priest infiltrates a small Provence town one family at a time, starting with the Rougons. "La Débâcle" takes place during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and depicts Napoleon III's downfall. "Son Excellence" also looks at political life, and "Pot-Bouille" and "Au Bonheur des Dames" look at middle class life in Paris. Note that Zola wrote the novels after the fall of Napoleon III. List of novels. In an "Introduction" of his last novel, "Le Docteur Pascal", Zola gave a recommended reading order, although it is not required, as  each novel stands on its own. Publication order A recommended reading order English translations. All of the twenty novels have been translated into English under various titles and editions. For many years, the novels were best known in bowdlerized editions of the late 19th and early 20th century, especially those published by Vizetelly & Co. Although the more well-known novels in the series received 20th century translations, and Elek Books published 11 new translations during the 1950s, many of the volumes remained largely out-of-print in the English language for decades after Zola's death. For instance, "The Fortune  of the Rougons" was translated in 1898, and then not again until 2012. "The Kill" was translated in 1895, and then not again until 2004. After about 1970, modern translations of the more famous novels in the series, such as "L'Assommoir" and "Germinal", were released by publishers like Penguin and Modern Library. Between 1993 ("The Masterpiece") and 2020 ("Nana" and "Doctor Pascal"), Oxford World's Classics published a complete run of all 20 novels in modern translation. This list comprises first-edition English translations. Later reprints in different years or under different titles or publishers generally not included. Source for  early translation information: 1. "La Fortune des Rougon" 2. "La Curée" 3. "Le Ventre de Paris" 4. "La Conquête de Plassans" 5. "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret" 6. "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon" 7. "L'Assommoir" 8. "Une Page d'amour" 9. "Nana" 10. "Pot-Bouille" 11. "Au Bonheur des Dames" 12. "La joie de vivre" 13. "Germinal" 14. "L'Œuvre" 15. "La Terre" 16. "Le Rêve" 17. "La Bête humaine" 18. "L'Argent" 19. "La Débâcle" 20. "Le Docteur Pascal" Adaptations. The BBC adapted the novels into a 27-episode (20 hour) radio drama series called "Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola". The  radical re-imagining was broadcast in three seasons on BBC Radio 4 between November 2015 and October 2016.