The Fortune of the Rougons - (Mint Editions (Literary Fiction)) by Émile Zola (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Fortune of the Rougons (1871) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. The first of twenty volumes of Zola's monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series is an epic story of family, politics, class, and history that traces the disparate paths of several French citizens raised by the same mother. Spanning the entirety of the French Second Empire, Zola provides a sweeping portrait of change that refuses to shy away from controversy and truth as it gets to the heart of heredity and human nature. Adelaide Fouque is a woman of Plassans, a town in southern France. Alongside her son Pierre Rougon, whose deceased father was her husband, Adelaide raises the Macquart siblings, her children from a brief, passionate affair. Despite their shared upbringing, the three children take vastly diverging paths in life. Pierre, desperate to prove his legitimacy, becomes an ambitious middle-class man whose deepest desire is to win favor with the aristocracy and to climb even further from his humble roots. Meanwhile, his half siblings struggle to make a living for themselves and their working-class families. As Pierre's ambitions lead him to not only disinherit the Macquarts, but to position himself as a supporter of Napoleon III in his attempt to overthrow the French government. At the same time, Silvère Mouret, Adelaide's grandson, and his lover Miette Chantegreil find themselves on the side of the republicans who attempt to resist Napoleon's coup. The Fortune of the Rougons is a story of family and fate, a thrilling and detailed novel that sets up a world rich enough for its author to explore in nineteen subsequent volumes. This edition of Émile Zola's The Fortune of the Rougons is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

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From the Back Cover

In the town of Plassans, Adelaide Fouque raises a son from her first marriage alongside two children born through a brief, passionate affair. Pierre, her legitimate son, grows into a life of ambition and vanity, while the Macquart siblings struggle to navigate a world of work, addiction, and hardship. The Fortune of the Rougons is a novel by Émile Zola.