THERESE RAQUIN

By Emile Zola


Translated and edited with a preface by Edward Vizetelly



PREFACE

This volume, "Therese Raquin," was Zola's third book, but it was the
one that first gave him notoriety, and made him somebody, as the saying
goes.

While still a clerk at Hachette's at eight pounds a month, engaged in
checking and perusing advertisements and press notices, he had already
in 1864 published the first series of "Les Contes a Ninon"--a reprint of
short stories contributed to various publications; and, in the following
year, had brought out "La Confession de Claude." Both these books were
issued by Lacroix, a famous go-ahead publisher and bookseller in those
days, whose place of business stood at one of the corners of the
Rue Vivienne and the Boulevard Montmartre, and who, as Lacroix,
Verboeckhoven et Cie., ended in bankruptcy in the early seventies.

"La Confession de Claude" met with poor appreciation from the general
public, although it attracted the attention of the Public Prosecutor,
who sent down to Hachette's to make a few inquiries about the author,
but went no further. When, however, M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, in a critical
weekly paper called the "Nain Jaune," spitefully alluded to this rather