The Fortune of the Rougons
by Émile Zola 1840–1902
The book, and the century it came out of.
Translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
Plassans, December 1851: the coup comes to a small Provençal town, a handful of republicans march out with rifles, and the Rougon family calculates precisely which way to jump. Zola planned twenty volumes to trace heredity through one family under the Second Empire; this is the first, the root of the whole tree, and it opens with two children in a graveyard and closes with a fortune founded on a corpse. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Millet, Daubigny and Courbet among them.
“The Fortune of the Rougons” is the initial volume of the Rougon-Macquart series.
The Fortune of the Rougons, by Émile Zola, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Salon & Steppe
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 408 pages
- Reading time
- about 8 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Translation
- Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785486124204
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
The Fortune of the Rougons, first published 1871, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Salon & Steppe shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486124204, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of The Fortune of the Rougons?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Émile Zola's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 408 pages, which is roughly about 8 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
