Ladies’ Delight

Au Bonheur des Dames (1883; Ladies’ Delight) depicts the mechanisms of a new economic entity, the department store, and its impact on smaller merchants. The sweeping descriptions of crowds and dry-goods displays justify Zola’s characterization of the novel as “a poem of modern activity.”

Au Bonheur des dames (1883; Ladies’ Delight) depicts the mechanisms of a new economic entity, the department store, and its impact on smaller merchants.