La Confession de Claude (Claude's Confession) was Emile Zola's first novel and his first attempt at what he would later call an "Experimental Novel." Published in Paris in 1865, it was quickly banned in the United States and Great Britain and was not translated into English for several decades. This is the first translation in nearly 150 years with an insightful and thought-provoking Introduction by one of the world's leading Emile Zola scholars, Stephen R. Pastore, who has dedicated himself to introducing Zola to a new generation of English-speaking readers all over the world, particularly in the United States.