The masterpiece (1950)

Claude Lantier's pursuit of a painting he cannot satisfactorily finish makes revision increasingly costly to his household and sense of himself. Zola gives artistic ambition a community, a market and a long accumulation of failed attempts. The failure is the point of interest here, with effort offering no automatic route to a successful object. Thomas Walton's English translation, first published in 1950 and revised by Roger Pearson for Oxford, is a useful English edition.