French novelist, playwright, journalist Émile Zola was born #OTD in 1840.
Zola achieved fame for his series of novels called "Les Rougon-Macquart," which consists of twenty novels depicting the social, economic, and political landscape of France during the Second Empire (1852–1870). Some of the notable novels in this series include "Germinal," "Nana," and "La Bête Humaine."
Books by Émile Zola at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/528