Émile Zola (1840-1902) was the most prominent French novelist and short story writer of the late 19th century, and a prominent critic and social activist who was persecuted for his exposure of the Dreyfus Affair.
Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853-1922) was an English translator, author, and war correspondent who supported Zola when he fled to England during the Dreyfus affair.
The Ladies's Paradise, (Au Bonheur des Dames,) was the 11th book in the Rougon-Macquart series, and tells of the foundation of what was to be the world's largest department store, its effect on smaller stores nearby, the conditions under which its staff existed, the effects on its customers, and a relationship between its director and one of its workers. It was first published in French in 1883, and this English translation was published in 1886.
The text was taken as an HTML file from Project Gutenberg Australia, and checked against the 1886 edition by Vizetelly & Co in the Internet Archive. I have silently corrected typos, curled quotation marks, and made changes to spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation using oxforddictionaries.com.
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