Other editions were also consulted.

The first English translation available in England was made by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly in 1894—Money [l’Argent] by Émile Zola (London: Chatto & Windus, 1894). Some earlier translations had appeared in America, where Zola’s novels were translated piecemeal from serial episodes in the newspapers, before the novels appeared in volume form. Most of these have sunk without trace. Vizetelly mentions one as being ‘of merit’—Money by Émile Zola, translated from the French by Benj. R. Tucker (Boston, Mass.: Benj. R Tucker Publishers, 1891). Benjamin R. Tucker was the editor and publisher of Liberty, a fortnightly organ of ‘Anarchistic Socialism, the Pioneer of Anarchy in America’.

Vizetelly’s version is extensively expurgated, with whole episodes omitted, and new passages invented to fill consequent gaps in the narrative. Tucker also suffers from censorship, and comments angrily on an omission he had to make:

In consequence of a disgraceful law… I am forced to omit from this picture a short but vigorous stroke of the word-painter’s brush, hoping that the time is not far distant when a saner spirit, and healthier morality… will inspire Americans with a resolve to submit no longer to the enforced emasculation of the greatest works of the greatest authors of this time and of times past.

‘Disgraceful law’ does not, however, constrain Tucker nearly as thoroughly as Victorian ‘morality’ does Vizetelly, who has to omit, among other things, Saccard’s bidding for the favours of Madame Conin and the rape of Alice de Beauvilliers. Vizetelly also comments on the regrettable omissions: ‘Nobody can regret these changes more than I do myself, but before reviewers proceed to censure me… If they desire to have verbatim translations of M. Zola’s works, let them help to establish literary freedom.’ Vizetelly deserves considerable gratitude for bringing a version of Zola to English readers, in the face of censorship difficulties which had sent his father to prison. However, it is regrettable that subsequent editions have all been versions of that same translation, despite its defects and heavy bowdlerization. Vizetelly commented that publication was very timely in 1894, in view of what he called ‘the rottenness of our financial world … and the inefficiency of our company laws’. It seems no less timely today for much the same reasons.

It has been a privilege to create the first new English translation of Money since the nineteenth century, a translation that can now cover the whole text. I have tried to keep the rhythm and emphases of Zola’s writing, and to make the novel read easily for contemporary readers, while keeping the flavour of its own period. Above all, I have tried to keep the verve, the energy, and the poetic dimension of Zola’s writing.

I should like here to thank those who, in different ways, have greatly helped me in this task, above all Nicholas Minogue, for untiring reading and helpful comment; Brian Nelson for advice and support; and Judith Luna for her unfailing (though sorely tried!) patience, support, and good humour.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

L’Argent was serialized in the newspaper Gil Blas from 30 November 1890 to 4 March 1891 and in La Vie populaire from 22 March 1891 to 30 August, 1891. It was published in volume form by Charpentier in March 1891. Paperback editions, with excellent critical introductions and notes, exist in the following collections: ‘Folio classique’, ed. Henri Mitterand, preface by André Wurmser (Paris, 1980); ‘Classiques de Poche’, ed. Philippe Hamon et Marie-France Azéma (Paris, 1998); GF Flammarion, ed. with introduction by Christophe Reffait, with illustrations, detailed notes, and financial lexicon (Paris, Éditions Flammarion, 2009). There is a very useful monograph on L’Argent by Colette Becker in the ‘Connaissance d’une Oeuvre’ series (Paris: Bréal, 2009). The invaluable Dictionnaire d’Émile Zola by Colette Becker, Gina Gourdin-Servenière, and Véronique Lavielle (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1993) offers exhaustive and alphabetically indexed information on Zola’s life, work, and fictional characters. In Cahiers naturalistes, no. 86 (2012), 285–94, ‘Zola et la Crise’ by Christophe Reffait analyses the treatment of the Bourse in L’Argent, and outlines Zola’s understanding of the periodicity of economic crises.

Biographies of Zola in English

Brown, Frederick, Zola: A Life (London: Macmillan, 1996); with discussion of Money in chapter 23.

Grant, Elliott M., Émile Zola (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1966).

Hemmings, F. W. J., The Life and Times of Émile Zola (London: Elek Books, 1977; also paperback, London: Bloomsbury Reader, 2013).

Schom, Alan, Émile Zola: A Bourgeois Rebel (London: Queen Anne Press, 1987).

Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred, Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of his Life and Work (London and New York: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1904; repr. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press).

Walker, Philip, Zola (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985).

Studies of Zola and Naturalism in English

Baguley, David, Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

—— (ed.) Critical Essays on Émile Zola (Boston: G. K.