Au bonheur des dames = The ladies' delight / Emile Zola ; translated and edited by Robin Buss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zola, Émile, 1840-1902.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Buss, Robin.

Series:

Penguin classics

Standardized Title:

Au bonheur des dames. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Department stores--France--Paris--History--19th century--Fiction.

Department stores.

Seduction--France--Paris--History--19th century--Fiction.

Seduction.

Women sales personnel--France--Paris--History--19th century--Fiction.

Women sales personnel.

History.

Paris (France)--Social conditions--19th century--Fiction.

France--Paris.

Local Subjects:

Paris (France)--Social conditions--19th century--Fiction.

Genre:

Fiction.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xxxii, 428 pages ; 20 cm.

Other Title:

Ladies' delight

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Penguin, 2001.

Language Note:

Translated from the French.

Summary:

Through charm, drive, and diligent effort Octave Mouret has become the director of one of the finest new department stores in Paris, Au Bonheur des Dames. Supremely aware of the power of his position, Mouret seeks to exploit the desire that his luxuriantly displayed merchandise arouses in the ladies who shop, and the aspirations of the young female assistants he employs. Charting the beginnings of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society, Zola captures in lavish detail the greedy customers and gossiping staff, and the obsession with image, fashion, and gratification that was a phenomenon of nineteenth-century French consumer society. Of all Zola's novels, this may be the one with the most relevance for our own time.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

0140447830

OCLC:

47232994