The Ladies' Paradise e. Émile Zola

The Ladies Paradise (Au bonheur des dames)(Ladies’ Delight) is a compelling story of ambition and love set against the backdrop of the spectacular rise of the department store in 1860s Paris. Octave Mouret is a business genius who transforms a modest draper's shop into a hugely successful retail enterprise, masterfully exploiting the desires of his female customers and ruining small competitors along the way. Through the eyes of trainee salesgirl Denise we see the inner workings of the store and the relations and intrigues among the staff, human dramas played out alongside the relentless pursuit of commercial supremacy.

Au Bonheur des Dames is the eleventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola.

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Émile Zola (1840-1902) was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction. His principal work, Les Rougon-Macquart, is a panorama of mid-19th century French life, in a cycle of 20 novels which Zola wrote over a period of 22 years. Meira um Émile Zola

 

... Baudu's drapery store Vieil Elbeuf, as moribund; a sour, icy, dank, ugly and lifeless environment, and satirizes its business formula: "not to sell a lot but to sell it dear". In contrast, the new paradise of the department store is a beacon of life: "It was like a riot of colour, a joy of the street bursting out here, in this wide open shopping corner where everyone could go and feast their eyes." Umfjöllun í Penguin Classics newsletter