The Death of Olivier Becaille and Others by Emile Zola, Fiction, Literary, Classics - Emile Zola

The title story -- the tale of a living man mistaken for dead and buried in a coffin -- is wonderful stuff, like all of Zola. But it's not alone: also included in this collection are "Captain Burle," "The Miller's Daughter," and "The Flood." Zola is prehaps best-remembered for his role in the Dreyfus affair: his J'accuse charged the then-current French government of antisemitism. It had, he said, wrongfully placing the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus in jail. This accusatory tale didn't appear in a journal, but as an accusatory letter (addressed to then-President FElix Faure!) on the front page of a Paris daily, L'Aurore. Zola was brought to trial for criminal libel on 9 June 1899, and was convicted on 23 February, sentenced, and removed from the Legion of Honor. He declared that Dreyfus' conviction and removal to a prisoners island came after a false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. Rather than go to jail, he fled to England. But soon he was allowed to return in time to see the government fall.