Orphaned Denise Baudu arrives in Paris with her two young brothers and finds her uncle’s old drapery shop dying in the shadow of the Ladies’ Paradise, Octave Mouret’s vast new department store. Taken on as a saleswoman, she endures the store’s rivalries and exhaustion while Mouret’s empire of sales, display and credit swallows the street around it.
Zola’s portrait of modern retail and consumer desire, from the Rougon-Macquart cycle, in Vizetelly’s English version. Download the free EPUB.