The naturalist novelist was later proud that ‘zolla’ in Italian means ‘clod of earth’.

1843

Family moves to Aix-en-Provence.

1847

(27 March) Death of father from pneumonia following a chill caught while supervising work on his scheme to supply Aix-en-Provence with drinking water.

1852–8

Boarder at the Collège Bourbon at Aix. Friendship with Baptistin Baille and Paul Cézanne. Zola, not Cézanne, wins the school prize for drawing.

1858

(February) Leaves Aix to settle in Paris with his mother (who had preceded him in December). Offered a place and bursary at the Lycée Saint-Louis. (November) Falls ill with ‘brain fever’ (typhoid) and convalescence is slow.

1859

Fails his baccalauréat twice.

1860

(Spring) Is found employment as a copy-clerk but abandons it after two months, preferring to eke out an existence as an impecunious writer in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

1861

Cézanne follows Zola to Paris, where he meets Camille Pissarro, fails the entrance examination to the École des Beaux-Arts, and returns to Aix in September.

1862

(February) Taken on by Hachette, the well-known publishing house, at first in the dispatch office and subsequently as head of the publicity department. (31 October) Naturalized as a French citizen. Cézanne returns to Paris and stays with Zola.

1863

(31 January) First literary article published. (1 May) Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe exhibited at the Salon des Refusés, which Zola visits with Cézanne.

1864

(October) Tales for Ninon.

1865

Claude’s Confession. A succès de scandale thanks to its bedroom scenes. Meets future wife Alexandrine-Gabrielle Meley (b. 1839), the illegitimate daughter of teenage parents who soon separated, and whose mother died in September 1849.

1866

Resigns his position at Hachette (salary: 200 francs a month) and becomes a literary critic on the recently launched daily L’Événement (salary: 500 francs a month). Self-styled ‘humble disciple’ of Hippolyte Taine. Writes a series of provocative articles condemning the official Salon Selection Committee, expressing reservations about Courbet, and praising Manet and Monet. Begins to frequent the Café Guerbois in the Batignolles quarter of Paris, the meeting-place of the future Impressionists. Antoine Guillemet takes Zola to meet Manet. Summer months spent with Cézanne at Bennecourt on the Seine. (15 November) L’Événement suppressed by the authorities.

1867

(November) Thérèse Raquin.

1868

(April) Preface to second edition of Thérèse Raquin. (May) Manet’s portrait of Zola exhibited at the Salon. (December) Madeleine Férat. Begins to plan for the Rougon-Macquart series of novels.

1868–70

Working as journalist for a number of different newspapers.

1870

(31 May) Marries Alexandrine in a registry office. (September) Moves temporarily to Marseilles because of the Franco-Prussian War.

1871

Political reporter for La Cloche (in Paris) and Le Sémaphore de Marseille. (March) Returns to Paris. (October) Publishes The Fortune of the Rougons, the first of the twenty novels making up the Rougon-Macquart series.

1872

The Kill.

1873

(April) The Belly of Paris.

1874

(May) The Conquest of Plassans. First independent Impressionist exhibition. (November) Further Tales for Ninon.

1875

Begins to contribute articles to the Russian newspaper Vestnik Evropy (European Herald). (April) The Sin of Father Mouret.

1876

(February) His Excellency Eugène Rougon. Second Impressionist exhibition.

1877

(February) L’Assommoir.

1878

Buys a house at Médan on the Seine, 40 kilometres west of Paris. (June) A Page of Love.

1880

(March) Nana. (May) Les Soirées de Médan (an anthology of short stories by Zola and some of his naturalist ‘disciples’, including Maupassant). (8 May) Death of Flaubert.