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In January 1898 French novelist and critic Émile Zola played an important part in the defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew unjustly accused of selling military secrets to Germany. On the front page of a Paris newspaper, the author published a terrific denunciation of French government officials, entitled “J’accuse…!” (“I Accuse…!”) It was written as an open letter to Félix Faure, President of the French Republic, and accused the government of anti-Semitism in the Dreyfus Affair. The brave letter had much to do with freeing Dreyfus in 1899.

An English translation of Zola's J'Accuse , and letters, articles, and interviews tracking the author's denunciation of the arrest and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain accused of espionage in 1894. Zola's writings document the "Dreyfus Affair," its political and cultural implications of fanaticism and prejudice, and the novelist's human rights defenses which led to his own trial, imprisonment, and year long exile in England. The editor supplies notes, a chronology, and biographies of the key players in the Dreyfus Affair. Includes some photographs and reproductions from the period's newspapers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

On July 19th, 1898, Emile Zola arrived in England after fleeing imprisonment in France. He was to spend eleven months in self-imposed exile because of his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair. During this time, the family of his English translator, Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, took care of his everyday needs. While in Britain, Zola wrote a short text entitled 'Pages d'exil,' in which he talked about his feelings regarding England, exile, and other matters. An avid photographer, Zola also took pictures of his surroundings that were left with the Vizetelly family when he returned to France. Dorothy Speirs and Yannick Portebois, in collaboration with Ernest Alfred Vizetelly's last surviving grandson, have here reproduced those photographs with the first English translation, fully annotated, of 'Pages d'exil.' The photographs, of landscapes, churches, and street scenes, have never been published before, and represent a major contribution to the collection of Zola photographs, many of which are today largely inaccessible. Together, the text and photographs will be of great interest to anyone who enjoys Zola's work, and to scholars of French history and the Dreyfus Affair.

Bringing together the groundbreaking criticism of Manet written by Emile Zola, this volume takes everything from his vigorous defense of the iconoclastic young painter to the memorial essay written after the artist's untimely death “Time will succeed in classing him among the great workmen of this century who have given their life that truth might triumph.”  — Zola on Manet, 1884 No one has written better on Manet than his friend Emile Zola, nor explained more clearly how modern art came into being through Manet’s genius. This volume collects all of Zola’s significant writings on Manet, from his passionate defense of the iconoclastic young painter to the essay written for the memorial exhibition after Manet’s untimely death. Manet’s career was surrounded by controversy almost from the very start. The hard-edged technique of his early works was not what Salon audiences expected, and when he started painting subjects as uncompromising as the unclothed picnicker in the Déjeuner sur l’herbe or the aggressively naked young courtesan in Olympia , with her suggestive cat, Paris was outraged. Such scandal was grist to the mill of his friend, the great Realist novelist Emile Zola. Zola’s vigorous polemic in Manet’s defense is justly famous as one of the finest writings on art of the 19th century. Manet thanked Zola by painting his portrait, which the novelist commemorated in a further essay; and when Manet died at the early age of 51, Zola wrote a moving summation of his life’s work. All these writings are included in this volume, which is introduced by the Zola specialist Robert Lethbridge.