The Beast Within - Emile Zola [236]
PENGUIN CLASSICS
GERMINAL
ÉMILE ZOLA
‘Buried like moles beneath the crushing weight of the earth, and without a breath
of fresh air in their burning lungs, they simply went on tapping’
Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railway worker, is a clever but uneducated young man with a dangerous temper. Compelled to take a back-breaking job at the Le Voreux mine when he cannot get other work, he discovers that his fellow miners are ill, hungry and in debt, unable to feed and clothe their families. When conditions in the mining community deteriorate even further, Lantier finds himself leading a strike that could mean starvation or salvation for all. The thirteenth novel in Zola’s great Rougon-Macquart sequence, Germinal expresses outrage at the exploitation of the many by the few, but also shows humanity’s capacity for compassion and hope.
Roger Pearson’s lively and modern new translation is accompanied by an introduction that examines the social and political background to Zola’s masterpiece, in particular the changing relationship between labour and capital. This edition also contains a filmography, chronology and notes.
Translated and edited by Roger Pearson
PENGUIN CLASSICS
NANA
ÉMILE ZOLA
‘Her slightest movements fanned the flame of desire,
and with a twitch of her little finger she could stir men’s flesh’
Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Theatre des Variétés. She soon rises from the streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of her day. Rich men, Comtes and Marquises fall at her feet, great ladies try to emulate her appearance, lovers even kill themselves for her. Nana’s hedonistic appetite for luxury and decadent pleasures knows no bounds — until, eventually, it consumes her. Nana provoked outrage on its publication in 1880, with its heroine damned as ‘the most crude and bestial sort of whore’. Yet the rich atmosphere and luminous language of this ‘poem of male desire’ transform Nana into an almost mythical figure: a destructive force preying on a corrupt, decaying society.
George Holden’s lively translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing Nana as a key work in Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle, representing a powerful critique of France’s Second Empire.
Translated with an introduction by George Holden
THE STORY OF PENGUIN CLASSICS
Before 1946 ... ‘Classics’ are mainly the domain of academics and students; readable editions for everyone else are almost unheard of. This all changes when a little-known classicist, E. V. Rieu, presents Penguin founder Allen Lane with the translation of Homer’s Odyssey that he has been working on in his spare time.
1946 Penguin Classics debuts with The Odyssey, which promptly sells three million copies. Suddenly, classics are no longer for the privileged few.
1950sRieu, now series editor, turns to professional writers for the best modern, readable translations, including Dorothy L. Sayers’s Inferno and Robert Graves’s unexpurgated Twelve Caesars.
1960s The Classics are given the distinctive black covers that have remained a constant throughout the life of the series. Rieu retires in 1964, hailing the Penguin Classics list as ‘the greatest educative force of the twentieth century.’
1970s A new generation of translators swells the Penguin Classics ranks, introducing readers of English to classics of world literature from more than twenty languages. The list grows to encompass more history, philosophy, science, religion and politics.
1980s The Penguin American Library launches with titles such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and joins forces with Penguin Classics to provide the most comprehensive library of world literature available from any paperback publisher.