A French family’s origins and their life under Napoleon III’s Second Empire are explored in this classic novel by the author of Thérèse Raquin. Émile Zola’s The Fortune of the Rougons is the first entry in his epic Les Rougon ...

His niece at first believes this work to be an arrogant denial of God's omnipotence, but as Pascal reveals the details of the Rougon-Macquart family tree to her, she begins to see the value in his work.

Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire."The novel was an immediate success.