Émile Zola Collection - The Ladies' Paradise

The Ladies' Paradise, originally Au Bonheur des Dames, is the eleventh novel of the famous Rougon-Macquart (1871-1893) series of twenty novels written by Émile Zola. It tells a rags-to-riches story about Denise Baudu, a poor young girl from the provinces, and Octave Mouret, the wealthy owner of the department store where Denise comes to work. The rise of the modern department store in late nineteenth-century Paris, the store as a symbol of capitalism of the modern city, and the bourgeois re...