• A compelling new translation of one of Zola's most powerful novels, the fifteenth work in his famous Rougon-Macquart series that traces the fortunes of a family over five generations.
• Earth is a vivid portrayal of peasant life on the eve of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Its graphic depiction of the spiralling disintegration of a family of agricultural workers led to the prosecution for obscenity of its first English translator.
• Brian Nelson's previous Zola translations for Oxford World's Classics have received critical acclaim and popular recognition, and his co-translator, Julie Rose, is internationally renowned for her translations, including Hugo's Les Misérables.
• Brian Nelson's introduction considers this most 'Zolaesque' novel, in which Zola's unflinching depiction of the bestiality and violence of the peasants brought to a head the literary debates about Naturalism.
• Includes an up-to-date bibliography, chronology of the author, and helpful explanatory notes.

       
'Only the earth is immortal...the earth we love enough to commit murder for her.'
     
Zola's novel of peasant life, the fifteenth in the Rougon-Macquart series, is generally regarded as one of his finest achievements, comparable to Germinal and L'Assommoir. Set in a village in the Beauce, in northern France, it depicts the harshness of the peasants' world and their visceral attachment to the land. Jean Macquart, a veteran of the battle of Solferino and now an itinerant farm labourer, is drawn into the affairs of the Fouan family when he starts courting young Françoise. He becomes involved in a bitter dispute over the property of Papa Fouan when the old man divides his land between his three children. Resentment turns to greed and violence in a Darwinian battle for supremacy.
     
Zola's unflinching depiction of the savagery of peasant life shocked his readers, and led to attacks on Naturalism's literary agenda. This new translation captures the novel's blend of brutality and lyricism in its evocation of the inexorable cycle of the natural world.