La Débâcle

'My title speaks not merely of war, but also of the crumbling of a regime and the end of a world.'
Émile Zola

The penultimate novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, La Débâcle (1892) takes as its subject the dramatic events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1. During Zola's lifetime it was the bestselling of all his novels, praised by contemporaries for its epic sweep as well as for its attention to historical detail.

La Débâcle seeks to explain why the Second Empire ended in a crushing military defeat and revolutionary violence. It focuses on ordinary soldiers, showing their bravery and suffering in the midst of circumstances they cannot control, and includes some of the most powerful descriptions Zola ever wrote. Zola skilfully integrates his narrative of events and the fictional lives of his characters to provide the finest account of this tragic chapter in the history of France. Often compared to War and Peace, La Débâcle has been described as a 'seminal' work for all modern depictions of war.

About the author

Emile Zola (1840-1902) war Dockarbeiter, Verlagsangestellter und Journalist. 1898 protestierte er gegen die Verurteilung von A. Dreyfus, mußte ins Exil nach England und kehrte nach einem Jahr amnestiert und gefeiert zurück. Sein Hauptwerk ist der 20bändige Romanzyklus 'Les Rougon-Macquart'.

Summary

La Débâcle is the penultimate novel in Zola's great Rougon-Macquart cycle. A stirring account of profound friendship between two soldiers from opposite ends of the class divide during the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune of 1870-1.

Product details

• Authors: Émile Zola, Emile Zola, Émile Zola, Zola Emile
• Assisted by: Robert Lethbridge (Editor), Robert (Master of Fitzwilliam College Lethbridge (Editor), Lethbridge Robert (Editor), Elinor Dorday (Translation), Dorday Elinor (Translation)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Trade
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 08.06.2017
• EAN: 9780198801894
• ISBN: 978-0-19-880189-4
• Series: World's classics; Oxford World's Classics; Die Rougon-Macquart; World's classics; Oxford World's Classics; Die Rougon-Macquart; World's classics
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Classics, Classic fiction (pre c 1945), Fiction in translation, Classic fiction: general and literary