Bidspirit auction | ”All Doors Open Before Him”

”All Doors Open Before Him” - Early Issue of Le Voleur Dedicated to the Writer Émile Zola at the Height of His Career as the Leading Figure of French Literary Naturalism - ”Monsieur Zola, now famous, sees all doors open before him, and everyone competes for the honor of providing him with the information he seeks for the creation of his human document.” Early issue of the French periodical Le Voleur (The Thief), dated January 5, 1883, devoted in admiration to the writer Émile Zola. The front page features a portrait of Zola at the age of forty-three, at the height of his reputation as an acclaimed novelist. The opening article is devoted to the growing popularity of Émile Zola and his literary works. The author portrays Zola as an admired public figure, recounting his humble beginnings - his birth in Paris in 1840 to an Italian engineer father, and his early employment at the renowned Hachette publishing house, where he was responsible for press relations. The article traces his literary development, from the short-story collection Contes à Ninon (Stories for Ninon) to his first major novel, Thérèse Raquin, in which he fully demonstrated his power as a writer. It then continues to his monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series, highlighting such controversial masterpieces as The Belly of Paris, The Kill (La Curée), and Nana. The central focus of the article is Zola's newly published novel Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies' Paradise), which had just appeared and firmly established him among the leading French novelists of his generation. The novel depicts the rise of Paris's great department stores and their devastating impact on small-scale commerce. The article also recounts several amusing anecdotes about Zola's methods of research. He would wander through the city, observing, investigating, and questioning ordinary people in markets and shops. His unusual behavior often aroused suspicion, and on more than one occasion he was detained by the police, who regarded him as either an eccentric or a man with criminal intentions, until he was forced to prove both his sanity and his identity as a novelist gathering human material for his work. ”Monsieur Zola, now famous, sees all doors open before him, and everyone competes for the honor of providing him with the information he seeks for the creation of his human document, proud in this way to collaborate, however indirectly, in the master's work. It was not always so. When the author of The Ladies' Paradise, still unknown, wandered through the city observing, questioning, and investigating, he often encountered either hostility or distrust. The Belly of Paris, for example, caused him endless difficulties. The market women eyed him suspiciously, convinced that this gentleman, who did not appear particularly respectable, had concealed beneath his coat a lobster, a melon, a bundle of asparagus, or the like. On several occasions he was taken before the police commissioner by guards who accused him of some wrongdoing. The day he attempted to climb onto the roofs of the market halls, he was taken for a madman, and he had considerable difficulty convincing people that he was in full possession of his mental faculties. For The Ladies' Paradise, however, the author was put directly in touch with those best qualified to provide him with information. Is it even necessary to say that everywhere people were delighted to place themselves at the service of the celebrated novelist? They supplied him with books, catalogues, trademarks, manufacturers' names, brand prices...”. The long-running French illustrated weekly Le Voleur (The Thief), originally founded in 1828, derived its playful title from the fact that during its early years it regularly compiled and republished selected excerpts, articles, and literary works from other newspapers and periodicals. This practice is humorously reflected in the illustration at the top of the front page, depicting a man copying from books and piles of papers beneath a caption describing him as one who ”collects and gathers.” The issue was published at the beginning of 1883, during the height of Émile Zola's career as the leading figure of French Naturalism, shortly after the publication of such celebrated and controversial novels as Nana and The Ladies' Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames), the latter appearing that same year. It also predates by many years Zola's famous involvement in the Dreyfus Affair at the close of the century, when he became the foremost champion of the innocence of the French Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus through a series of articles published in the French press, most notably his celebrated ”J'Accuse...!”. In addition to the principal portrait, the lower right-hand corner of the front page carries a dramatic contemporary notice announcing the death of the prominent French statesman and businessman Léon Gambetta, one of the founders of the French Third Republic, who died on December 31, 1882,