When Zola’s Thérèse Raquin was first published in 1868, it was an immediate succès de scandale.  It’s not difficult to see why.  Its account of lust, betrayal, murder, and madness had all the ingredients for popular success, but it was its explicit portrayal of female sexuality that drove the censorious French critics and readers to outrage and condemnation.

It’s a straightforward enough, though somewhat lurid, read.  There’s nothing subtle about it.  In fact, its relentlessly grim and sombre tone left me feeling somewhat smothered by darkness and longing for even a glimmer of light.  I read the novel in English, in a translation by Leonard Tancock first published in the early 1960s that in part reminded me of the sensational and excessively dramatic language used in penny dreadfuls.  I’d be interested to see if this is muted in a more recent translation or whether it reflects faithfully Zola’s original.