Zola (Émile) L'Oeuvre, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author "à Henry Bauer, mon divoué confrére Emile Zola" on half-title, with 2pp. Autograph Letter signed from Zola to the same recipient bound after half-title and dated 6th April 1886 (one or two ink stains), light marginal toning and light foxing, original wrappers bound in, later morocco-backed boards, spine lightly faded, extremities lightly rubbed, 8vo, Paris, G. Charpentier, 1886.

⁂ Presented to Henry Bauer, a journalist who wrote a favourable review on the work. In the seemingly unpublished letter the author thanks the journalist for the article which he read with "profound enthusiasm".

The work follows a fictional account of Zola's friendship with Paul Cézanne, the two had known each other since their boyhood in Aix-en-Provence, and he was the model for Zola’s character Claude Lantier.

The book is often blamed for ending the friendship. The story of a groundbreaking artist unable to live up to his potential may have read as a personal slight to Cézanne; no correspondence exists between the two after a letter in which Cézanne thanks Zola for sending him the novel.