Emile Zola. Stories for Ninon. Translated by Edward Vizetelly. New York: Geo. H. Richmond & Son, 1898. ...
Description
Emile Zola. Stories for Ninon. Translated by Edward Vizetelly. New York: Geo. H. Richmond & Son, 1898. First U.S. edition. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-vi [vii-viii] [1] 2-344, inserted frontispiece with portrait of Zola after a lithographic drawing by Will Rothenstein, original publisher's terra cotta cloth, front and spine panels stamped in white, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. Private owner's bookplate affixed to front paste-down. Touch of rubbing to spine ends, a tight, clean, near fine copy.More Information:
This translation by Vizetelly, first published by Heinemann in England in 1895, combines material from Zola's first book, Contes a Ninon (1864), and a sequel of sorts, Nouveaux Contes a Ninon (1874). "Zola was infamous for his portrayals of the seamy side of human nature, but here we see a wounded idealism -- perhaps the larval stage of his naturalism -- expressed in many cases via the fantastic. Of the novella and seven short stories from Part I, all but three of the stories are fantastic in some way. 'Simplice' and 'The Love-Fairy' are fairly traditional fairy tales; 'Sister-of-the-Poor' is a devotional Catholic story about charity and miracles; 'The Adventures of Big Sidoine and Little Mederic' is an odd story about twins, a big brawny one and little brainy one, who become full-fledged giant and dwarf as the story progresses. 'Blood' is an antiwar vignette in which four comrades-in-arms narrate their horrific and phantasmagorical dreams, all drenched in blood, leading them to lay down their arms and desert. Part II has only one fantasy, 'The Paradise of Cats,' featuring a talking cat." - Robert Eldridge. Vizetelly was sentenced to three months in jail in 1889 for publishing some other works by Zola.
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