title: The Fortune of the Rougons (Oxford World's Classics)
author:  Emile Zola 
description: <br /><strong>Brian Nelson</strong> is an Emeritus Professor of French Studies and Translation at Monash University, Melbourne. He is the author or editor of twelve books on aspects of modern French and European culture, including <em>The Cambridge Companion to mile Zola</em>, and he has translated four other Zola novels for the Oxford World's Classics series.<br />
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  # Oxford World’S Classics
  
  
  POT LUCK
  
  
  Émile Zola was born in Paris in 1840, the son of a Venetian engineer and his
  French wife. He grew up in Aix-en-Provence, where he made friends with Paul
  Cézanne. After an undistinguished school career and a brief period of dire
  poverty in Paris, Zola joined the newly founded publishing firm of Hachette,
  which he left in 1866 to live by his pen. He had already published a novel and
  his first collection of short stories. Other novels and stories followed until
  in 1871 Zola published the first volume of his Rougon-Macquart series with the
  subtitle _Histoire naturelle et sociale d’une famille sous le Second Empire_ ,
  in which he sets out to illustrate the influence of heredity and environment
  on a wide range of characters and milieux. However, it was not until 1877 that
  his novel _L’Assommoir_ , a study of alcoholism in the working classes,
  brought him wealth and fame. The last of the Rougon-Macquart series appeared
  in 1893 and hi