ght 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
series (which had begun in 1871) 1,421,000 copies. These were of the
ordinary Charpentier editions of the French originals. By adding thereto
several _editions de luxe_ and the widely-circulated popular illustrated
editions of certain volumes, the total amounts roundly to 2,100,000.
"Rome," "Lourdes," "Paris," and all M. Zola's other works, apart from
the "Rougon-Macquart" series, together with the translations into a
dozen different languages--English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch,
Danish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Hungarian, and others--are not included
in the above figures. Otherwise the latter might well be doubled. Nor
is account taken of the many serial issues which have brought M. Zola's
views to the knowledge of the masses of all Europe.

It is, of course, the celebrity attaching to certain of M. Zola's
literary efforts that has stimulated the demand for his other writings.
Among those which are well worthy of being read for their own sakes, I
would assign a prominent place to the present volume. Much of the story
element in it is admirable, and, further, it shows M. Zola as a
genuine satirist and humorist. The Rougons' yellow drawing-room and
its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife
Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account,
indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, is
satire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life,
and never degenerates into mere caricature.

It is a rather curious coincidence that, at the time when M. Zola was
thus portraying the life of Provence