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 Provençal 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