French novelist and critic, the founder of the Naturalist movement in literature. Zola redefined Naturalism as "Nature seen through a temperament." Among Zola's most important works is his famous Rougon-Macquart cycle (1871-1893), which included such novels as L'Assommoir (1877), about the suffering of the Parisian working-class, Nana (1880), dealing with prostitution, and Germinal (1885), depicting the mining industry. Zola's open letter 'J'accuse,' on January 13, 1898, reopened the case of the Jewish Captain, Alfred Dreyfus, sentenced to Devil's Island.

"I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation." (from My Hates, 1866)

Emile Zola was born in Paris. His father, François Zola, was an Italian engineer, who acquired French citizenship. Zola spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence, southeast France, where the family moved in 1843. When Zola was seven, his father died, leaving the family with money problems – Emilie Aubert, his mother, was largely dependent on a tiny pension. In 1858 Zola moved with her to Paris. In his youth he became friends with the painter Paul Cézanne, who was his class-mate. Zola's widowed mother had planned a career in law for him. Zola, however, failed his baccalaureate examination – as later did the writer Anatole France, who failed several times but finally passed. According to one story, Zola was sometimes so broke that he ate sparrows that he trapped on his window sill.

Zola began to write under the influence of the romantics. Before his breakthrough, Zola worked as a clerk in a shipping firm and then in the sales department of the publishing house of Louis-Christophe-Francois-Hachette. He also contributed literary columns and art reviews to the Cartier de Villemessant's newspapers. Zola supported the struggle of Edouard Manet and the Impressionists; Manet thanked him with a portrait. As a political journalist Zola did not hide his antipathy toward the French Emperor Napoleon III, who used the Second Republic as a springboard to become Emperor.

During his formative years Zola wrote several short stories and essays, 4 plays and 3 novels. Zola's name is not usually connected with horror and fantasy, but in 'Le sang' (1864, 'Blood'; 'Veri,' suom. Anti Oja, Länsisuomen Työmies, 1904) he stepped into that realm of writing. In the eerie tale four soldiers give up their weapons after having visions of blood and suffering. This story was collected in Contes à Ninon (1864, Stories for Ninon), which the author himself reviewed under the cover of anonymity. When Zola's sordid autobiographical novel La Confession de Claude (1865) was published and attracted the attention of the police, Zola was fired from Hachette.

Zola did not much believe in the possibility of individual freedom, but emphasized that "events arise fatally, implacably, and men, either with or against their wills, are involved in them. Such is the absolute law of human progress." Inspired by Claude Bernard's Introduction à la médecine expérimentale (1865) Zola tried to adjust scientific principles in the process of observing society and interpreting it in fiction. Thus a novelist, who gathers and analyzes documents and other material, becomes a part of the scientific research. His treatise, Le Roman Experimental (1880), manifested the author's faith in science and acceptance of scientific determinism. Zola was obsessed with counting, counting lamp-posts, trees, doorways, and sought to take all of the “unpredictable” out of life.

After his first major novel, Thérèse Raquin (1867), Zola began the long series called Les Rougon Macquart, the natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire. "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world." The family had two branches – the Rougons were small shopkeepers and petty bourgeois, and the Marquarts were poachers and smugglers who had problems with alcohol. Some members of the family would rise during the story to the highest levels of the society, some would fall as victims of social evils and heredity.

Zola presented the idea to his publisher in 1868. "The Rougon-Macquart – the group, the family, whom I propose to study – has as its prime characteristic the overflow of appetite, the broad upthrust of our age, which flings itself into enjoyments. Physiologically the members of this family are the slow working-out of accidents to the blood and nervous system which occur in a race after a first organic lesion, according to the environment determining in each of the individuals of this race sentiments, desires, passions, all the natural and instinctive human manifestations whose products take on the conventional names of virtues and vices."

At first the plan was limited to 10 books, but ultimately the series comprised 20 volumes, ranging in subject from the world of peasants and workers to the imperial court. Zola prepared his novels carefully. The result was a combination of precise documentation, accurate portrayals, and dramatic imagination; the last had actually little to do with his Naturalist theories. Zola interviewed experts, prepared thick dossiers, made thoughtful portraits of his protagonists, and outlined the action of each chapter. He rode in the cab of a locomotive when he was preparing La Bête humaine (1890, The Beast in Man), and for Germinal he visited coal mines. This was something very different from Balzac's volcanic creative writing process, which produced La Comédie humaine, a social saga of nearly 100 novels.

The Beast in Man was adapted for screen for the first time in 1938. The director, Jean Renoir wrote the screenplay with Zola's daughter, Denise Leblond-Zola. In the film Séverine (Simone Simon) wants her lover, the locomotive engineer Jacques Lantier (Jean Gabin), to kill her stationmaster husband. Lantier, an honest and proud man, cannot do it, but in a fit of anger and frustration he strangles his beloved instead and commits suicide by throwing himself off a fast moving train. In a letter to his friend Paul Alexis in 1880 Zola explained that he would like to see the novel "to be like a train journey strarting from one end of the line and arriving at the final platform with slowdown and stops at each station, that is to say in each chapter." There is a strict order behind the structure of the narrative; the text imitates the energy and movements of a steam engine.

Lantier's locomotive "La Lison" is female, not only because "locomotive" and "machine" are feminine terms in French, but she is also the object of his affection. The railway line is more than a background; with it Zola brings to the story a certain fatality. From the beginning, Lantier has no choise but to submit to his fate. At the end, the uncontrolled steam engine travels without a driver, carrying soldiers to war. "What mattered the victims crushed by the machine upon its way? Was it not going toward the future anyhow, careless of the blood expended?" 

With L'Assommoir (1877, Drunkard), a depiction of alcoholism, Zola became the best-known writer in France, who attracted crowds imitators and disciples, to his great annoyance: "I want to shout out from the housetops that I am not a chef d'ecole, and that I don't want any disciples," Zola once said. His personal appearance – once somebody said that he had the head of a philosopher and the body of an athlete – was known to everybody.

Following the publication of Les Soirées de Médan (1880), Guy de Maupassant jokingly suggested that Zola's country house at Médan should be visited with the same interest as the Palace of Versailles and other historical places. Zola lived there eight months in the year, and the other four month in Paris. Since his childhood, he had been very fond of animals. At Médan, he  kept several cats and monkeys.

Nana, about a young Parisian prostitute, took the reader to the world of sexual exploitation. In general, sex was a central element in Zola's novels. The book was a huge success in France but in Britain it was attacked by moralists. Henry Vizetelly, who had published several Zola translations from the Rougon-Macquart series, was imprisoned on charges of obscenity. The translation of La Terre (1887) practically ruined Vizetelly & Company. Germinal, one of Zola's finest novels, came out in 1885. It was the first major work on a strike, based on his research notes on labor conditions in the coal mines. Germinal was criticized by right-wing political groups as a call to revolution. Zola's tetralogy, Les Quatre Evangiles, which started with Fécondité (1899), was left unfinished. Some critics have cited La Débâcle (1892, The Downfall: A Story of the Horrors of War) as an influence of Stephen Crane's masterpiece The Red Badge of Courage (1895), but Crane's first biographer claimed that the author threw Zola's story aside after reading the first few pages. ('The Red Badge of Courage and a Review of Zola's La Débâcle'  by James B. Colvert, in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 71, No. 2, Feb., 1956)

Also notable in Zola's career was his involvement in the Dreyfus affair with his open letter J'accuse...! The title was suggested by Georges Clemenceau, the editor of L'Aurore, where the letter was published. "In making these accusations, I am fully aware that my action comes under Articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29 July 1881 on the press, which makes libel a punishable offence," Zola declared. Clemenceau himself wrote 655 articles on the affair. Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was a French Jewish army officer, who was falsely charged with giving military secrets to the Germans. The trials quickly developed into a ideological struggle, or as Anatole France wrote, "rendered an inestimable service to the country by bringing out and little by little revealing the forces of past and the forces of future: on the one side bourgeois authoritarianism and Catholic theocracy; on the other side socialism and free thought."

Dreyfus was transported to Devil's Island in French Guiana. The case was tried again in 1899 and he was found first guilty and pardoned, but later the verdict was reversed. "The truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it," Zola announced, but during the process he was sentenced in 1898 to imprisonment and removed from the roll of the Legion of Honor. He escaped to England, where he settled in Essex as 'M. Jacques Beauchamp'. Zola's plan to publish an album of English anecdotes illustrated by photographs was never realized. While not writing, he read the Daily Telegraph with the help of an English dictionary and watched a bit of cricket.

It was not until 1906 that the French appeal court quashed Dreyfus's sentence, but Zola did not see his campaing vindicated. After being pardoned he returned to France as a hero. Zola died on September 28, 1902, in Paris, under mysterious circumstances, overcome by carbon monoxide fumes in his sleep. He never woke up, but strangely, his wife did not die, nor the pets. However, it could have been an accident, too: before going to bed, Zola had the habit of lighting a small coal fire, and keep the windows locked tight. (The Dreyfus Affair and the Rise of the French Public Intellectual by Tom Conner, 2014, p. 219) According to some speculations, Zola's enemies, the agents of the anti-Dreyfusard faction, blocked the chimney of his apartment, causing poisonous fumes to build up and kill him. At Zola's funeral Anatole France declared, "He was a moment of the human conscience." When Zola's remains were transported to the Panthéon in 1908, Dreyfus was openly attacked in the street. A Paris court acquitted his assailant. Naturalism as a literary movement fell gradually out of favor, but Zola's integrity had a profound influence on such writers as Theodore Dreiser, August Strindberg and Emilia Pardo-Bazan.

For further reading: Emile Zola by Angus Wilson (1952); Emile Zola by F.W.J. Hemmings (1953); Zola's 'Germinal' by Elliott M. Grant (1962); A Zola Dictionary by I.G. Patterson (1969); Emile Zola: A Selective Analytical Bibliography, ed. by Brian Nelson (1982); Critical Essays on Emile Zola, ed. by David Baguley (1986); A Bourgeois Rebel by Alan Schom (1987); Emile Zola: A Biography by Alan Schom (1988); Zola by Marc Bernard (1988); Zola and the Craft of Fiction, ed. by Robert Lethbridge (1990); Emile Zola: 'L'Assommir' by David Baguley (1992); Emile Zola Revisited by William J. Berg and Laurey K. Martin (1992); Thresholds of Desire by Ilona Chessid (1993); The Cambridge Companion to Emile Zola by Brian Nelson (2007); Emile Zola: A Life by Stephen R. Pastore and Felice Dumont (2014) - Note: The American writer Henry James was not enthusiastic about naturalism and wrote that the "only business of naturalism is to be - natural, and therefore, instead of saying of Nana that it contains a great deal of filth, we should simple say of it that it contains a great deal of nature." Film: The Life of Emile Zola (1937), dir. by William Dieterle, screenplay Norman Reilly Raine, Heinz Herald, Geza Herczed, from a story by Heiz Herald and Geza Herczeg, starring Paul Muni, Gale Sondergarrd, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden. Source material, Matthew Josephson's Zola and His Time. - "Rich, dignified, honest and strong, it is at once the finest historical film ever made and the greatest screen biography, greater even than The Story of Louis Pasteur with which Warners squared their conscience last year." (Frank S. Nugent in the New York Times) - Negotiations were carried out with Dreyfus' widow, Lucie, to ensure that she would find the film acceptable. Other film adaptations: Thérèse Raquin, 1953, dir.by Marcel Carne; Gervaise, 1955, dir. by René Clément; Pot-Bouille, 1957, dir. by Julien Duvivier; La curée, 1966, dir. by Roger Vadim; La faute de Abbe Mouret, 1970, dir. by Georges Franju. See also: Wladyslaw Reymont, Guy de Maupassant, Gore Vidal.  Museum: Maison d'Emile Zola, 26 rue Pasteur, 78670, Medan, Yvelines - Zola's home from 1878

Selected works:

• Contes à Ninon, 1864
  - Stories for Ninon (translated by E. Vizetelly, 1888)
• La Confession de Claude, 1865
  - Claude’s Confession (translated by George D. Cox, 1888)
• Mes haines, 1866
  - My Hatreds (translated by Palomba Paves-Yashinsky and Jack Yashinsky, 1991)
• Le voeu d'une morte, 1866
  - A Dead Woman's Wish (translated by Count de Soissons, 1902) 1902)
• Mon Salon, 1866
• Thérèse Raquin, 1867
  - Thérèse Raquin: A Novel (translators: Philip G. Downs, 1955; Willard R. Trask, 1960; L.W. Tancock, 1962; Robin Buss, 2004; Andrew Rothwell, 2008; eds. Brian Nelson, 1993; Tom Lathrop, 2007)
  - Thérése Raquin (näytelmäsuom. 1873)
  - films: 1915, dir. by Nino Martoglio, starring Maria Carmi; 1916, The Marble Heart, dir. by Kenean Buel, starring Violet Horner; 1928, dir. by Jacques Feyder, starring Gina Manès; 1953, dir. by Marcel Carné, starring Simone Signoret, Raf Vallone, Jacques Duby; Bakjwi, 2009, dir. by Chan-wook Park
•  Edouard Manet, 1867
• Les Mystères de Marseille, 1867
  - The Flower Girls of Marseilles (translated by George D. Cox, 1888) / The Mysteries of Marseilles (translated by Myron A. Cooney, 1885; Edward Vizetelly, 1895)
• Les Mystères de Marseille, 1867 (play, with Marius Roux)
• Madeleine Férat, 1869
  - Magdalen Férat (translated by John Stirling, 1880) / Shame (translated by Alec Brown, 1954) / Madeleine Férat (translated by Alec Brown, 1957)
• Les Rougon-Macquart, 1871-93, (ed. by Henri Mitterand, 5 vols., 1960-67)
  - 20 novels, starting with La Fortune des Rougon, 1871 (The Fortune of the Rougions, 1886); La Curée, 1874 (The Rush for the Spoil, 1886 / The Kill, 1895); Le Ventre de Paris, 1874 (La Belle Lisa; or, The Paris Market Girls, 1882 / The Fat and the Thin, 1888 / Savage Paris, 1955); La Conquête de Plassans, 1874 (The Conquest of Plassans, 1887 / A Priest in the House, 1957); La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, 1875 (Abbé Mouret's Transgression, 1886 / The Sin of the Abbé Mouret, 1904); Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, 1876 (Clorinda; or, the Rise and Reign of His Excellency Eugène Rougon, 1880 / His Excellency Eugène Rougon, 1886 / His Excellency, 1958); L'Assommoir, 1877 (Gervaise, 1879 / The Dram-Shop, 1897 / Drink, 1903 / The Gin Palace, 1952); Une Page d'amour, 1878 (Hélène: A Love Episode, 1878 / A Page of Love, 1897 / Love Affair, 1957; L'Inondation, 1880 (novella; The Flood); Nana, 1880 (Nana, 1884); Pot-Bouille, 1882 (Piping Hot!, 1885 / Pot-Bouille, 1895 / Lesson in Love, 1953 / Restless House, 1953); Au Bonheur des Dames, 1883 (Shop Girls of Paris, 1883 / The Ladies' Paradise, 1883 / Ladies' Delight, 1957); La Joie de vivre, 1884 (How Jolly Life Is, 1886 / The Joy of Life, 1901 / Zest for Life, 1955); Germinal, 1885 (Germinal, 1885); L'Œuvre, 1886 (The Masterpiece, 1886 / His Masterpiece, 1886); La Terre, 1887 (The Soil, 1888 / La Terre, 1895 / Earth, 1954); Le Rêve, 1888 (The Dream, 1893); La Bête humaine, 1890 (The Human Beast, 1891 / The Monomaniac, 1901 / /The Beast in Man, 1958); L'Argent, 1891 (Money, 1894); La Débâcle, 1892 (The Downfall, 1982 / The Debacle, 1968); Le Docteur Pascal, 1893 (Doctor Pascal, 1893)
• La Fortune des Rougon, 1871
  - The Girl in Scarlet, or, The Loves of Silvère and Miette (translated by John Stirling, 1882) / The Fortune of the Rougons (translated with an introduction and notes by Brian Nelson, 2012)
• La Curée, 1874
  - In the Whirlpool (translated from the French by John Stirling, 1882) / La Curée (translated by Teixeira de Mattos, 1895) / Venus of the Counting House (specially revised and edited, 1950) / The Kill (translators: A. Teixeira de Mattos, 1895; Brian Nelson, 2004; Arthur Goldhammer, 2004)
• Thérèse Raquin, 1873 (play, from the novel)
  - Seeds (in Modern Drama, 1966)
• Nouveaux contes à Ninon, 1874
• Le Ventre de Paris, 1874
  - The Fat and the Thin; or, The Belly of Paris (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1895) / Savage Paris (translated by David Hughes and Marie-Jacqueline Mason, 1955) / The Belly of Paris (translators: Brian Nelson, 2007; Mark Kurlansky, 2009)
• La Conquête de Plassans, 1874
  - A Mad Love, or, The Abbé and His Court (translated by John Stirling, 1882) / The Conquest of Plassans (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1887) / A Priest in the House (translated by Brian Rhys, 1957)
• Les héritiers Rabourdin, 1874 (play)
  - The Heirs of Rabourdin (tr. 1893)
• La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, 1875
  - Albine, or, The Abbe's Temptation (translated by John Stirling, 1882) / Abbé Mouret's Transgression (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1887) / The Sin of Father Mouret (translated by Sandy Petrey, 1969) / Abbé Mouret's Sin (translated by Alec Brown, 1970)
• Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, 1876
  - Clorinda; or, The Rise and Reign of His Excellency Eugene Rougon (translated by Mary Neal Sherwood, 1880) / The Mysteries of the Court of Louis Napoleon (tr. 1882) / His Excellency (translators: Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1897; Alec Brown, 1958)
• L'Assommoir, 1877
  - Assommoir: A Novel (translated by John Stirling, 1879) / The "Assommoir": A Realistic Novel (transl. anon. 1884, rev. ed. The Dram-Shop, ed. by E.A. Vizetelly, 1897) / The Drunkard (translated by A. Symons, 1894) / Drink; Adapted from 'L'Assommoir' of Émile Zola (translated by S. J. Adair Fitzgerald, 1903) / The Dram Shop (translated by Gerard Hopkins, 1951) / L'Assommoir (translated by Atwood H. Townsend, 1962; Margaret Mauldon, 1995) / Assommoir = The Dram Shop (translated and edited by Robin Buss, 2000) / The Drinking Den (translated by Robin Buss, 2004)
  - Ansa: yhteiskunnallinen kuvaus Pariisin työväen elämästä toisen keisarikunnan aikana, kuuluva romaanisarjaan Rougon-Macquartin suku (suom. Paavo Warén, 1903-1904) / Ansa (suom. Juha Mannerkorpi, 1947)
  - films: 1902, Les victimes de l'alcoolisme, dir. by Ferdinand Zecca; 1902, dir. by Ferdinand Zecca; 1909, dir. by Albert Capellani; 1917, Drink, dir. by Sidney Morgan; 1921, dir. by Maurice de Marsan & Charles Maudru; 1933, dir. by Gaston Roudès, starring Line Noro; 1956, Gervaise, dir. by René Clément, starring Maria Schell, François Périer
• Une Page d'amour, 1878
  - A Love Episode (translated by C.C. Starkweather, 1910) / A Love Affair (translated by Jean Stewart Elek, 1957)
• Le Bouton de Rose, 1878 (play, in Théâtre, 1878)
• Théâtre, 1878
• La République Française et la Littérature, 1879
• Nana, 1880
  - Nana (translators: Charles Duff, 1880; John Stirling, 1882; Victor Plarr, 1894; Burton Rascoe, 1922; Joseph Keating, 1926; Lowell Bair, 1964; George Holden, 1972; Douglas Parmée, 1992)
  - Nana 1-2 (suom. Yrjö Veijola, 1930) / Nana (suom. Georgette Vuosalmi, 1952)
  - films: 1926, dir. by Jean Renoir, starring Catherine Hessling and Werner Krauss; 1934, dir. by Dorothy Arzner & George Fitzmaurice, starring Anna Sten, Lionel Atwill; 1944, dir. by Roberto Gavaldón & Celestino Gorostiza, starring Lupe Velez; 1954, dir. by Christian-Jacque, starring Martine Carol, Charles Boyer; 1970, dir. by Mac Ahlberg, starring Anna Gaël; 1982, dir. by Dan Wolman, starring Katya Berger; 1985, dir. by Rafael Baledón & José Bolaños
• Le Roman expérimental, 1880
  - The Experimental Novel, and Other Essays (translated by Belle M. Sherman, 1893) / The Naturalist Novel (edited with an introd. by Maxwell Geismar, 1964)
• Les Soirées de Médan, 1880 (with Guy de Maupassant, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Henri Céard, Léon Hennique, and Paul Alexis; contains Zola's L’attaque du moulin)
  - The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories (translated with an introduction by Douglas Parmée, 1984)
  - Rynnäkkö myllyä vastaan (suom. 1906)
• Nana, 1881 (play, with William Busnach, from the novel, in Trois pièces, 1885)
• Les romanciers naturalistes , 1881
• Le Naturalisme au théâtre, 1881
• Nos auteurs dramatiques, 1881
• Documents littéraires: études et portraits, 1881
• Pot-Bouille, 1882
  - Pot-Bouille (Piping Hot): A Realistic Novel (translated by Percy Pinkerton, 1895) / Piping Hot (translated by Percy Pinkerton, 1924) / Restless House (translated by Percy Pinkerton, introd. by Angus Wilson, 195-?) / Lesson in Love / Pot Luck (translated by Brian Nelson, 1999)
• Le Capitaine Burle, 1882
• Une campagne, 1880-1881, 1882
• Pot-Bouille, 1883 (play, with William Busnach, from the novel, in Trois pièces, 1885)
• Au Bonheur des Dames, 1883
  - Bonheur des dames, or, The Shop Girls of Paris (translated by John Stirling, 1883) / The Ladies' Paradise (translators: Kristin Ross, 1992; Brian Nelson, 1995) / Au bonheur des dames = The Ladies’ Delight (translators: April Fitzlyon, 1957; Robin Buss, 2001)
  - Naisten aarreaitta (suom. Gertrud Colliander (1912) / Naisten paratiisi (suom. Ossi Lehtiö, 1974)
• Naïs Micoulin, 1884
• La Joie de vivre, 1884
  - Life's Joys (tr. 1884) / How Jolly Life Is! (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1888) / The Joy of Life (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1901) / Zest for Life (translated by by Jean Stewart, 1955)
• Germinal, 1885
  - Germinal, or Master and Man: A Realistic Novel (tr. 1885, rev. edn ed. E.A. Vizelly, 1901) / Germinal (translated by Havelock Ellis, 1895; Leonard Tancock, 1954; Willard Trask, 1962; Stanley Hochman, 1970; Peter Collier, 1993; Roger Pearson, 2004, Raymond N. MacKenzie, 2011)
  - Kivihiilenkaivajat (suom. Maria Palm, 1915) / Germinal 1-2 (suom. Leila Adler, 1958)
  - films: 1913, dir. by Albert Capellani; 1963, dir. by Yves Allégret, starring Jean Sorel, Berthe Granval, Claude Brasseur and Bernard Blier; 1993, dir. by Claude Berri, starring Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou
• L'Œuvre, 1886
  - The Masterpiece (translators: Katherine Woods, 1946; Thomas Walton, 1993)
• L'affaire Dreyfus: lettre à la jeunesse, 1887
  - Dreyfus Case / Dreyfus Affair: "J'accuse" and Other Writings (translated by Eleanor Levieux, 1996)
• Le Ventre de Paris, 1887 (play, with William Busnach, from the novel)
• Renée, 1887 (play)
• La Terre, 1887
  - La Terre (translated by Ernest Dowson, 1895) / The Soil: The Earth (translated by Henry Vizetelly, 1888) / The Earth (translators: Ann Lindsay, 1955; Douglas Parmée, 1980)
• A Soldier's Honour, 1888 (short stories)
• Germinal, 1888 (play, from the novel, with William Busnach)
• Le Rêve, 1888
  - The Dream (translators: Eliza E. Chase, 1893; Michael Glencross, 2005; Andrew Brown, 2005)
  - Unelma (suom. Väinö Jaakkola, 1914)
  - film: 1921, dir. by Jacques de Baroncelli
• Madeleine, 1889 (play, in Oeuvres complètes, 1927-29)
• La Bête humaine, 1890
  - Human Brutes (La Bête Humaine): A Realistic Novel (translated by Count Edgar de V. Vermont, 1890) / The Monomanic (translated by Edward Vizetelly, 1901) / Bête Humaine (translators: Leonard Tancock, 1977; Roger Pearson) / The Human Beast (translated by Louis Colman, 1932) / The Beast in Man (translators: Alec Brown, 1956; R.G. Goodyear and P.J.R. Wright, 1968; Leonard Tancock, 1977) / The Beast Within (translators: Roger Pearson, 1999; Roger Whitehouse, 2008)
  - Ihmispeto (suom. Wikki Ilmoni, 1906)
  - films: 1920, Die Bestie im Menschen, dir. by Ludwig Wolff; 1938, dir. by Jean Renoir, starring Jean Gabin; 1954 (Human Desire), dir. by Fritz Lang, starring Glen Ford; 1957, La bestia humana, dir. by Daniel Tinayre; 1995 (TV film) Cruel Train, dir. by Malcolm McKay, starring David Suchet, Saskia Reeves. "Renoir was forced to cut one of his favorite shots: the camera closely roaming across Severine's murdered body evoking a sense of violence, guilt and desire all wrapped into one complex image. Fritz Lang's remake, Human Desire (1954), had its own moments but Hollywood was far more censorious about exploring the potential for lust and violence within ordinary people." (from The BFI Companion to Crime, ed. by Phil Hardy, 1997)
• L'Argent, 1891
  - Money (L'argent): A Realistic Novel (tr. 1891) / Money (translators: Benj. R. Tucker, 1891; Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1894)
  - Raha (suom. 1916)
  - film: 1928, dir. by Marcel L'Herbier, starring Brigitte Helm, Marie Glory, Yvette Guilbert, Pierre Alcover, Alfred Abel, Henry Victor
• La Débâcle, 1892
  - The Downfall: A Story of the Horrors of War (translated by Ernest A. Vizetelly, 1892) / La Débâcle (translated by Elinor Dorday, 2000) / The Debacle (translators: John Hands, 1968; L. W. Tancock, 1973)
  - Sota (suom. Saima Grönstrand, Sohvi Reijonen ja Hilma Sederholm, 1892)
• The Attack on the Mill, 1892 (short stories)
• Le Docteur Pascal, 1893
  - Doctor Pascal (translators: Ernest Vizetelly, 1893; Mary J. Serrano, 1898; Vladimir Kean, 1957)
• Les Trois Villes: Lourdes, 1894
  - The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1894)
• Les Trois Villes: Rome, 1896
  - The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1896)
• Les Trois Villes: Paris, 1898
  - The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris (translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, 1898)
• Nouvelle campagne, 1897
• Messidor, 1897 (play, music by Alfred Bruneau)
• 'J'accuse', on January 13, 1898 (in L'Aurore)
• Les Quatre Évangiles: Fécondité, 1899 (Le Travail, 1901; La Vérité, 1903; La Justice, unfinished)
  - Fruitfulness (translated by Ernest A. Vizetelly, 1900)
  - Hedelmälisyys 1-2 (suom. V.A. Marjanen 1905-1906)
• Les Quatre Évangiles: Le Travail, 1901
  - Labor: A Novel (translated by Ernest A. Vizetelly, 1901)
• La vérité en marche, 1901
• L'ouragan, 1901 (play, music by Alfred Bruneau)
• Les Quatre Évangiles: La Vérité, 1903
  - Truth (translated by Ernest A. Vizetelly, 1903)
  - Totuus (suom. Paavo Warén, 1902-1903)
• L'Enfant Roi, 1905 (play, music by Alfred Bruneau)
• Poèmes lyriques, 1921 (opera librettos, includes Messidor, L'Ouragan, L'Enfant-Roi, Lazare, Violaine la chevelue, Sylvanire)
• Œuvres complètes, 1927-29 (50 vols., edited by Eugène Fasquelle and Maurice Le Blond)
• The Works of Emile Zola, 1928 (one volume ed.)
• Madame Sourdis, 1929
• Letters to J. Van Santen Kolff, 1940 (edited by Robert J. Niess)
• La République en marche, 1956 (2 vols., edited by Jacques Kayser)
• Mes Voyages, 1958 (edited by René Ternois)
• Salons, 1959 (edited by F.W.J. Hemmings and Robert J. Niess)
• Lettres inédites à Henry Céard, 1959 (edited by A.J. Salvan)
• Vingt messages inédits de Zola à Céard, 1961 (edited by A.J. Salvan)
• L'atelier de Zola: Textes de Journaux, 1865-1870, 1963 (edited by Martin Kanes)
• Lettres de Paris, 1963 (edited by P.A. Duncan and Vera Erdely)
• Œuvres complètes, 1966-69 (15 vols., edited by Henri Mitterand)
• Contes et nouvelles, 1976 (edited by Roger Ripoll)
• Correspondance, 1978-1995 (10 vols., edited by B.H. Bakker, et al.)
• Zola photographe, 1990 (eds. François Emile-Zola and Massin)
  - Zola--Photographer (translated from the French by Liliane Emery Tuck, 1988)
• Œuvres complètes, 2002- (21 vols., edited by Henri Mitterand)
• Notes from Exile, 2003 (translated by Dorothy E. Speirs; with 43 photographs by Emile Zola and a foreword by Glen Vizetelly James; edited by Dorothy E. Speirs and Yannick Portebois)
• Lettres à Jeanne Rozerot: 1892-1902, 2004 (edited by Brigitte Émile-Zola et Alain Pagès)