Most famous for his twenty-volume dissection of nineteenth-century French mores and society, the Rougon-Macquart novels, Zola was also an extremely accomplished short-story writer, as exemplified by the tales included in this volume.

Concerned with the manifold aspects of everyday life and varying in their settings - from aristocratic drawing rooms to poverty-stricken garrets, from the hustle and bustle of Paris to the Provencal countryside of the author's childhood - these stories will keep the reader riveted from the beginning to the end and surprise for their modernity.

Contains:

• The Attack on the Mill 
• The Girl Who Loves Me 
• Rentafoil 
• Death by Advertising 
• Story of a Madman 
• Big Michu 
• The Way People Die 
• A Flash in the Pan 
• Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder 
• Priests and Sinners 
• Fair Exchange 
• The Haunted House