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<h2> PREFACE </h2>
<p>This volume, "Therese Raquin," was Zola's third book, but it was the one
that first gave him notoriety, and made him somebody, as the saying goes.</p>
<p>While still a clerk at Hachette's at eight pounds a month, engaged in
checking and perusing advertisements and press notices, he had already in
1864 published the first series of "Les Contes a Ninon"—a reprint of
short stories contributed to various publications; and, in the following
year, had brought out "La Confession de Claude." Both these books were
issued by Lacroix, a famous go-ahead publisher and bookseller in those
days, whose place of business stood at one of the corners of the Rue
Vivienne and the Boulevard Montmartre, and who, as Lacroix, Verboeckhoven
et Cie., ended in bankruptcy in the early seventies.</p>
<p>"La Confession de Claude" met with poor appreciation from the general
public, although it attracted the attention of the Public Prosecutor, who
sent down to Hachette's to make a few inquiries about the author, but went
no further. When, however, M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, in a critical weekly
paper called the "Nain Jaune," spitefully alluded to this rather daring
novel as "Hachette's little book," one of the members of the firm sent for
M. Zola, and addressed him thus:</p>
<p>"Look here, M. Zola, you are earning eight pounds a month with us, which
is ridiculous for a man of your talent. Why don't you go into literature
altogether? It will bring you wealth and glory."</p>
<p>Zola had no choice but to take this broad hint, and send in his
resignation, which was at once accepted. The Hachettes did not require the
services of writers of risky, or, for that matter, any other novels, as
clerks; and, besides, as Zola has told us himself, in an interview with my
old friend and employer,[*] the late M. Fernand Xau, Editor of the Paris
"Journal," they thought "La Confession de Claude" a trifle stiff, and
objected to their clerks writing books in time which they considered
theirs, as they paid for it.</p>
<p>[*] He sent me to Hamburg for ten days in 1892 to report on<br/>
the appalling outbreak of cholera in that city, with the<br/>
emoluments of ten pounds a day, besides printing several<br/>
articles from my pen on Parisian topics.—E. V.<br/></p>
<p>Zola, cast, so to say, adrift, with "Les Contes a Ninon" and "La
Confession de Claude" as scant literary baggage, buckled to, and set about
"Les Mysteres de Marseille" and "Therese Raquin," while at the same time
contributing art criticisms to the "Evenement"—a series of articles
which raised such a storm that painters and sculptors were in the habit of
purchasing copies of the paper and tearing it up in the faces of Zola and
De Villemessant, the owner, whenever they chanced to meet them.
Nevertheless it was these articles that first drew attention to Manet, who
had hitherto been regarded as a painter of no account, and many of whose
pictures now hang in the Luxembourg Gallery.</p>
<p>"Therese Raquin" originally came out under the title of "A Love Story" in
a paper called the "Artiste," edited by that famous art critic and
courtier of the Second Empire, Arsene Houssaye, author of "Les Grandes
Dames," as well as of those charming volumes "Hommes et Femmes du 18eme
Siecle," and many other works.</p>
<p>Zola received no more than twenty-four pounds for the serial rights of the
novel, and he consented at the insistence of the Editor, who pointed out
to him that the periodical was read by the Empress Eugenie, to draw his
pen through certain passages, which were reinstated when the story was
published in volume form. I may say here that in this translation, I have
adopted the views of the late M. Arsene Houssaye; and, if I have allowed
the appalling description of the Paris Morgue to stand, it is, first of
all, because it constitutes a very important factor in the story; and
moreover, it is so graphic, so true to life, as I have seen the place
myself, times out of number, that notwithstanding its horror, it really
would be a loss to pass it over.</p>
<p>Well, "Therese Raquin" having appeared as "A Love Story" in the "Artiste,"
was then published as a book, in 1867, by that same Lacroix as had issued
Zola's preceding efforts in novel writing. I was living in Paris at the
time, and I well recall the yell of disapprobation with which the volume
was received by the reviewers. Louis Ulbach, then a writer on the
"Figaro," to which Zola also contributed, and who subsequently founded and
edited a paper called "La Cloche," when Zola, curiously enough, became one
of his critics, made a particularly virulent attack on the novel and its
author. Henri de Villemessant, the Editor, authorised Zola to reply to
him, with the result that a vehement discussion ensued in print between
author and critic, and "Therese Raquin" promptly went into a second
edition, to which Zola appended a preface.</p>
<p>I have not thought it necessary to translate this preface, which is a long
and rather tedious reply to the reviewers of the day. It will suffice to
say, briefly, that the author meets the strictures of his critics by
pointing out and insisting on the fact, that he has simply sought to make
an analytic study of temperament and not of character.</p>
<p>"I have selected persons," says he, "absolutely swayed by their nerves and
blood, deprived of free will, impelled in every action of life, by the
fatal lusts of the flesh. Therese and Laurent are human brutes, nothing
more. I have sought to follow these brutes, step by step, in the secret
labour of their passions, in the impulsion of their instincts, in the
cerebral disorder resulting from the excessive strain on their nerves."</p>
<p>EDWARD VIZETELLY SURBITON, 1 December, 1901.</p>
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<h2> THERESE RAQUIN </h2>
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