Brian Nelson is a professor of French Studies at Monash University, Melbourne and editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies. His publications include Zola and the Bourgeoisie and Émile Zola: A Selective and Analytical Bibliography, and a number of modern translations of Emile Zola for the Oxford World's Classics series.

• Acknowledgements Introduction The Background To Therese Raquin: Science And Literature Progress And Positivism The Realistic ImaginationThe Birth Of Naturalism Therese Raquin: Narrative And Myth Plot Narration Character Symbol And Image Myth Conclusion Notes To Introduction Bibliography Preface De La Deuxieme Edition Therese Raquin Notes to Text

Novel by Emile Zola, first published serially as Un Mariage d'Amour in 1867 and published in book form with the present title in the same year. Believing that an author must simply establish his characters in their particular environment and then observe and record their actions as if conducting an experiment, Zola nonetheless adopted a highly moral, unscientific tone in this grisly novel, the first to put his "analytical method" into practice. The sensual Therese and her lover Laurent murder her weak husband Camille. After marrying, they are haunted by Camille's ghost, and their passion for each other turns to hatred. They eventually kill themselves. Conservative readers accused Zola of prurience; the novel, however, illustrates the author's belief that sexual pleasure leads only to brutality and destruction.

Brian Nelson is a professor of French Studies at Monash University, Melbourne and editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies. His publications include Zola and the Bourgeoisie and Émile Zola: A Selective and Analytical Bibliography, and a number of modern translations of Emile Zola for the Oxford World's Classics series.

• Acknowledgements Introduction The Background To Therese Raquin: Science And Literature Progress And Positivism The Realistic ImaginationThe Birth Of Naturalism Therese Raquin: Narrative And Myth Plot Narration Character Symbol And Image Myth Conclusion Notes To Introduction Bibliography Preface De La Deuxieme Edition Therese Raquin Notes to Text

Novel by Emile Zola, first published serially as Un Mariage d'Amour in 1867 and published in book form with the present title in the same year. Believing that an author must simply establish his characters in their particular environment and then observe and record their actions as if conducting an experiment, Zola nonetheless adopted a highly moral, unscientific tone in this grisly novel, the first to put his "analytical method" into practice. The sensual Therese and her lover Laurent murder her weak husband Camille. After marrying, they are haunted by Camille's ghost, and their passion for each other turns to hatred. They eventually kill themselves. Conservative readers accused Zola of prurience; the novel, however, illustrates the author's belief that sexual pleasure leads only to brutality and destruction.

Brian Nelson is a professor of French Studies at Monash University, Melbourne and editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies. His publications include Zola and the Bourgeoisie and Émile Zola: A Selective and Analytical Bibliography, and a number of modern translations of Emile Zola for the Oxford World's Classics series.

• Acknowledgements Introduction The Background To Therese Raquin: Science And Literature Progress And Positivism The Realistic ImaginationThe Birth Of Naturalism Therese Raquin: Narrative And Myth Plot Narration Character Symbol And Image Myth Conclusion Notes To Introduction Bibliography Preface De La Deuxieme Edition Therese Raquin Notes to Text

Novel by Emile Zola, first published serially as Un Mariage d'Amour in 1867 and published in book form with the present title in the same year. Believing that an author must simply establish his characters in their particular environment and then observe and record their actions as if conducting an experiment, Zola nonetheless adopted a highly moral, unscientific tone in this grisly novel, the first to put his "analytical method" into practice. The sensual Therese and her lover Laurent murder her weak husband Camille. After marrying, they are haunted by Camille's ghost, and their passion for each other turns to hatred. They eventually kill themselves. Conservative readers accused Zola of prurience; the novel, however, illustrates the author's belief that sexual pleasure leads only to brutality and destruction.