Rougon-Macquart cycle

work by Zola
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Also known as: “Les Rougon-Macquart”, “Les Rougon-Macquart: histoire naturelle et sociale d’une famille sous le second Empire”, “The Rougon-Macquart: Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second Empire”

Rougon-Macquart cycle, sequence of 20 novels by Émile Zola, published between 1871 and 1893. The cycle, described in a subtitle as The Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second Empire, is a documentary of French life as seen through the lives of the violent Rougon family and the passive Macquarts, who are related to each other through the character of Tante Dide. The series began with La Fortune des Rougon (1871; The Rougon Family; also translated as The Fortune of the Rougons), which introduces the Rougons (the legitimate branch) and the Macquarts (the illegitimate and lower-class branch). ...(100 of 554 words)