Description

Franklin Library leather edition of Emile Zola's "Nana," Translated from the French by George Holden, a Limited edition, Illustrated by Allan Mardon, one of the 100 GREATEST BOOKS OF ALL TIME series, published in 1981. Bound in navy blue leather, the book has matching French moire silk end leaves, satin book marker, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges----in near FINE condition. Emile Edouard Charles Antonine Zola, who lived from 1840--1902, was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France. Zola was nominated for the first and second NOBEL PRIZE in 1901 and 1902. He was born in Paris, but the family moved to Aux-en-Provence when Emile was three years old. At age five, he was sexually molested by an older boy. In 1852, after his father's death, he entered the College Courbon as a boarding student. There he complained about poor nutrition and bullying. "Nana" displays a panorama of 19th-century French life, studying vice and crime with faithful minuteness and focusing attention mainly on the more animal aspects of human nature. Nana tells the story of Nana Coupeau's rise from streetwalker to high-class prostitute during the last three years of the French Second Empire. The novel opens with a night at the Theatre des Varietes in April 1867. All of Paris is talking about her, but this is her first stage appearance. When asked to say something about her talents, Bordenave, the manager of the theatre, explains that a star does not need to know how to sing or act. "Nana has something else, dammit, and something that takes the place of everything else. I scented it out, and it smells damnably strong in her, or else I lost my sense of smell." The novel was SENSATIONAL and controversial! 509 pages. I offer combined shipping.