The Beast Within

The Beast Within (1890) is a novel by French author Émile Zola. The seventeenth of twenty volumes of Zola’s monumental Les Rougon-Macquart series is an epic story of family, politics, class, and history that traces the disparate paths of several French citizens raised by the same mother. Spanning the entirety of the French Second Empire, Zola provides a sweeping portrait of change that refuses to shy away from controversy and truth as it gets to the heart of heredity and human nature. Jacques Lantier is a violent man. Kept in check by his dedication to his work as an engine driver, he manages to suppress the disturbing fantasies of rape and murder that fill his tortured mind. While waiting for his train to get repaired, he meets his cousin Flore, a beautiful young woman who inflames him with desire and deadly intent. At the last moment, he flees before he can harm her, only to witness a gruesome murder at night by the railroad tracks. When a police investigation fails to find the killer, life in Le Havre returns to a sense of calm, and even Lantier seems to put the past behind him. When he begins an affair with Severine, the wife of his boss Roubaud, he is roped into a plot to kill the man and steal a secret fortune. The Beast Within is a story of family and fate, a thrilling and detailed novel that continues a series rich enough for its author to explore in twenty total volumes. This edition of Émile Zola’s The Beast Within is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

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