17 h 46 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 17 h 46 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A clean bed, steady work, enough to eat: how hard can a decent life be to build?
In a poor district of Paris, Gervaise Macquart works as a laundress and dreams of a shop of her own. Left alone by Auguste Lantier, she meets Coupeau, a cheerful, hard-working roofer who offers the hope of a settled home. Her wishes are modest, but keeping them within reach takes more than effort.
Émile Zola brings you close to the wash-house troughs, the rooftops and the drinking place on the corner. Around Gervaise, neighbors work, gossip, lend help and find fault. The Dram Shop explores how wages, housing, family and alcohol shape ordinary lives, without turning their struggles into a sermon.
What you’ll discover
- A woman worth knowing Follow warm-hearted Gervaise as she works toward a clean home and a little security.
- Paris at work Step into a steamy wash-house where women beat linen and talk across long troughs.
- A street full of lives Meet neighbors whose kindness, envy and pride become part of Gervaise's daily struggle.
- The pull of drink Explore alcohol as a social force, with the corner drinking place offering warmth after labor.
- Voices close at hand Hear the characters' own words and rhythms enter the telling of their lives.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy richly detailed novels about ordinary families, vivid city settings, big set pieces like feasts, and characters whose hopes and losses you feel as your own.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Abandonment leaves Gervaise feeding her children
- A modest dream opens toward marriage
- An accident unsettles their careful household
- Prosperity brings the past back inside
- Small permissions begin to undermine everything
- Drink feeds the harm it causes
- Kindness cannot protect a crowded home
- The neighborhood speaks through the story
- A small dream holds everything together
Who’s who
- Gervaise MacquartA gentle, hardworking laundress with a limp who wants only steady work, a clean home and a bed to die in.
- CoupeauA cheerful zinc worker who courts Gervaise with patience and swears he will never drink, until an accident changes him.
- LantierGervaise's first lover, a vain hatter from the south who abandons her and later returns as a charming guest.
- GoujetA strong, shy blacksmith with a golden beard who lends Gervaise money and loves her quietly.
- NanaGervaise's daughter, a restless girl who loves ribbons and attention and longs to escape the family's cramped rooms.
- Madame LorilleuxCoupeau's sister, a chainmaker who is stingy, jealous and always ready to criticize Gervaise.
- VirginieA tall dark-haired woman beaten by Gervaise in the washhouse, who later returns to the neighborhood with a policeman husband.
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The Dram Shop in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Dram Shop
by Émile Zola · 1877
A laundress in a Paris slum fights with buckets, saves for a shop and dreams of a quiet bed of her own.
Medium level10–20 hours to read2 languages
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In short
A woman stands at a hotel window in Paris, waiting for the man who has not come home. Before the day ends, he has left her for good, taking the trunk and the pawn tickets, and she is fighting another woman with buckets and wooden beaters in a public washhouse. Émile Zola published The Dram Shop in 1877 as part of his series about the Rougon-Macquart family.
The Dram Shop at a glance
- Reading time
- About 10 h 10 min8 h 5 min fast, 12 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 145,600 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1877by Émile Zola
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A woman is left alone at her window
The story opens at dawn in the Hotel Boncoeur. Gervaise, twenty-two years old, has waited all night for her partner Lantier. She thinks she saw him enter a dance hall with a young metal polisher named Adele. Now she watches the workers pour through the city gate and wonders whether he lies dead in a corner.
The room behind her tells the story of their money. A chest of drawers has lost a drawer, and a bundle of pink pawn tickets sits on the mantelpiece. Her sons, Claude and Etienne, sleep side by side. Lantier comes home sulking, and when Gervaise names Adele, he shakes her and sends her off to pawn the last rags they own.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1877
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 11 h 35 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Zola, Émile. The Dram Shop. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dram-shop.
Zola, É. (2026). The dram shop. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dram-shop (Original work published 1877)
Zola, Émile. The Dram Shop. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dram-shop.
@book{zola2026dram,
author = {Zola, Émile},
title = {The Dram Shop},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dram-shop},
note = {First published 1877}
}
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What is The Dram Shop about?
It follows Gervaise, a Paris laundress, who is abandoned by her lover, marries a zinc worker, builds a shop of her own and watches her hopes wear away under debt and drink in a crowded working-class neighborhood.
What does L'Assommoir mean?
It is the name of the drinking house run by Père Colombe. The word suggests something that knocks a person senseless, and the copper still at the back makes it a symbol of the drink that harms the whole neighborhood.
Is The Dram Shop a true story?
It is fiction, published by Zola in 1877 as part of his Rougon-Macquart series. He based its streets, trades and speech on careful study of working-class Paris, so the setting feels real even though the characters are invented.
The author
Émile Zola
1840–1902 · French novelist
Émile Zola (1840–1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, and poet. He was born in Paris, grew up in Aix-en-Provence, and later lived in Paris and Médan. He wrote Thérèse Raquin (1867), Nana (1880), and Germinal (1885). His twenty-novel series, Les Rougon-Macquart, appeared between 1871 and 1893.
More by Émile Zola
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