Das Paradies der Damen Emile Zola - Anhand der Geschichte der Protagonistin Denise, einer Verkäuferin, die aus der Provinz nach Paris kommt und im Paradies der Damen eine Anstellung findet, wird das Wachstum und die Struktur dieses Kaufhauses und gleichzeitig der Niedergang des kleingewerblichen Einzelhandels eines kompletten Pariser Stadtviertels beschrieben. Die im Roman auftauchenden Figuren sind aktiv oder passiv mit dem expandierendem Kaufhaus verbunden. Besonderes Augenmerk findet neben der Verkäuferin Denise der Inhaber des Kaufhauses, Octave Mouret, und dessen Leben in der feinen Pariser Gesellschaft sowie seine Geschäftspraktiken. Um den Kampf des kleinen Einzelhändlers gegen das aufkommende Großwarenhaus darzustellen, betrieb Zola gewohntermaßen umfangreiche betriebswirtschaftliche und soziologische Studien, er interviewte Geschäftsführer, Abteilungsleiter und Verkäuferinnen der genannten Warenhäuser. Sein fiktives Riesenwarenhaus sollte ein ideales Beispiel darstellen, deshalb nahm er sich bei dessen Beschreibung die Verwaltung des Unternehmens Le Bon Marché zum Vorbild, während ihm das Kaufhaus Grands Magasins du Louvre zwar schlechter organisiert, in der Warenpräsentation aber überlegen erschien.

More than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 books collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Balzac who in the midst of his literary career resynthesized his work into La Comédie Humaine, Zola from the start at the age of 28 had thought of the complete layout of the series. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "environmental" influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution which became more prevalent during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution. The series examines two branches of a family: the respectable (that is, legitimate) Rougons and the disreputable (illegitimate) Macquarts for five generations. As he described his plans for the series, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world." Although Zola and Cézanne were friends from childhood, they broke in later life over Zola's fictionalized depiction of Cézanne and the Bohemian life of painters in his novel L'¼uvre (The Masterpiece, 1886). From 1877 with the publication of L'Assommoir, Émile Zola became wealthy, he was better paid than Victor Hugo, for example. He became a figurehead among the literary bourgeoisie and organized cultural dinners with Guy de Maupassant, Joris-Karl Huysmans and other writers at his luxurious villa in Medan near Paris after 1880. Germinal in 1885, then the three 'cities', Lourdes in 1894, Rome in 1896 and Paris in 1897, established Zola as a successful author. The self-proclaimed leader of French naturalism, Zola's works inspired operas such as those of Gustave Charpentier, notably Louise in the 1890s. His works, inspired by the concepts of heredity (Claude Bernard), social manichaeism and idealistic socialism, resonate with those of Nadar, Manet and subsequently Flaubert.