Novel
Thérèse Raquin
Émile Zola · 1867
Synopsis
Thérèse has married her cousin Camille, a sickly boy, without love. With his mother, Mme Raquin, the couple runs a small shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris. Laurent, a friend of Camille's, becomes Thérèse's lover; to be free, the two lovers drown Camille during an outing on the Seine. The memory of the drowned man then begins to haunt them.
Context
The novel first appeared as a serial in L'Artiste, from August to October 1867, then in volume form from Lacroix the same year. In Le Figaro of 23 January 1868, Louis Ulbach condemned it as putrid literature; Zola replied in the preface to the second edition, in 1868, that he had wanted to study temperaments and not characters. The book marks his move to an observation that claims to be scientific, shortly before he undertook his great cycle.
Who it is for
A short, tightly constructed novel, almost a chamber piece, read in one sitting; some scenes are extremely violent.
Prizes and reception
Adapted for the stage, cinema, opera and television; Robin Buss and Andrew Rothwell have retranslated it into English.
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