Yet the publication of "Rome," was the signal for a general outcry on
the part of English and American reviewers that Zolaism, as typified by
the Rougon-Macquart series, was altogether a thing of the past. To my
thinking this is a profound error. M. Zola has always remained faithful
to himself. The only difference that I perceive between his latest
work, "Paris," and certain Rougon-Macquart volumes, is that with time,
experience and assiduity, his genius has expanded and ripened, and that
the hesitation, the groping for truth, so to say, which may be found in
some of his earlier writings, has disappeared.

At the time when "The Fortune of the Rougons" was first published, none
but the author himself can have imagined that the foundation-stone of
one of the great literary monuments of the century had just been laid.
From the "story" point of view the book is one of M. Zola's very best,
although its construction--particularly as regards the long interlude of
the idyll of Miette and Silvere--is far from being perfect. Such a work
when first issued might well bring its author a measure of popularity,
but it could hardly confer fame. Nowadays, however, looking backward,
and bearing in mind that one here has the genius of M. Zola's lifework,
"The Fortune of the Rougons" becomes a book of exceptional interest
and importance. This has been so well understood by French readers that
during the last six or seven years the annual sales of the work have
increased threefold. Where, over a course of twenty years, 1,000 copies
were sold, 2,500 and 3,000 are sold to-day. How many living English
novelists can say the same of their early essays in fiction, issued more
than a quarter of a century ago?

I may here mention that at the last date to which I have authentic
figures, that is, Midsummer 1897 (prior, of course, to what is called
"L'Affaire Dreyfus"), there had been sold of the entire Rougon-Macquart