Zola. Zola: Photographer. Photographs by Émile Zola.

208 photographs selected and compiled by François Émile Zola and Massin.  Seaver Books/Henry Holt and Company, 1988. Revised edition (first in English). First U.S. edition, first printing. 183 pages. Hardcover, very good with repaired nick on top edge of front cover, not visible when dust jacket in place. Protected dust jacket is fine although somewhat out of alignment so that spine title is partly on back. The French novelist Zola became an enthusiastic photographer in 1888.  Many of his photographs are candid street scenes. The photographs in this book are from the collection of two of his grandsons, including co-author François Émile Zola.  The book is arranged in chapters: Zola: Photographer, Life in Médan, A Second Family, The Trip to Italy, Exile in England, Zola’s Paris, The World’s Fair of 1900 (in Paris, France), and Portraits and Still Lifes. Includes photos of Zola, his wife, and children.  Originally published in France in 1979 by Editions Denoël.  Summary:

Zola: Photographer (1988) presents a collection of photographs taken by Émile Zola, the famous French novelist, revealing a lesser-known side of him as an enthusiastic amateur photographer in the late nineteenth century.

The book contains more than 200 photographs selected and compiled by his grandson François Émile Zola and designer Massin. It shows images Zola created after he discovered photography in 1888 and became deeply interested in the new medium. The photographs document everyday life around him—his family, friends, and homes—as well as scenes from Paris and places he traveled.

Organized into thematic chapters such as life at his country house in Médan, trips to Italy, his exile in England during the Dreyfus Affair, and views of Paris including the Exposition Universelle of 1900, the book offers a visual record of Zola’s personal world at the turn of the twentieth century.

Overall, the book reveals Zola not only as a writer but also as a careful observer who used photography to capture daily life, family relationships, and the changing urban culture of his time. It provides a unique visual perspective on his life and on French society in the late 1800s.