The idea of publishing those translations originated, then, with Henry Vizetelly, unless, indeed, it was suggested to him by somebody else. In 1885 his son Ernest, on going to London, found the firm doing a large and increasing business. In addition to French and English writers, several Russian authors, Tolstoï, Dostoieffsky, and Lermontoff,--who were followed a little later by Gogol,--had been added to the firm's catalogue. A series of reprints of the old dramatists, the well-known "Mermaid Series," was being projected;[11] and the Zola translations, so far as they then went, were in wide demand. This surprised Ernest Vizetelly, whose anticipations had been so different. But he yielded to evidence, and even began to think that there was at last some prospect of English people dropping the hypocrisy which had clung to them so long and looking unpleasant facts in the face.
He returned to Paris, where he remained till 1887, when various reasons induced him to take up his residence in London. He had married some years previously, and though his wife was French he particularly desired that his children should retain his nationality. Moreover, he now had the offer of a great deal of work from his father, who was projecting various reprints of French eighteenth-century books, as well as expensive and sumptuous editions of "The Heptameron," "The Decameron," and the works of Rabelais. Some thousands of pounds were spent on those undertakings, but only the first-named eventually saw the light.[12] Arriving in London, Ernest Vizetelly became one of the readers and editors of his father's firm, but for one reason or another he still had little to do with the Zola translations. His father contemplating a new edition of the Gramont Memoirs, he revised the translation alleged to have been edited by Sir Walter Scott, and corrected some scores of errors which he found in it. For the rest, his time was largely spent in researches respecting the proposed version of "The Heptameron," of which he was editor.
Meanwhile Vizetelly & Co. were still issuing translations of modern French fiction, and Mr. George Moore, having occasion to go to Paris, spoke on the firm's behalf to Zola respecting "La Terre," which book the novelist was then preparing. An arrangement was made for the sale of the British rights to Vizetelly & Co., who then knew virtually nothing of the work, apart from the fact that it would deal with the French peasantry. Some time afterwards, however, Zola supplied a brief outline of his book in a letter which has been already quoted.[13] Then various delays ensued, several months elapsing before proofs of the earlier chapters were forwarded to Vizetelly & Co. Those proofs were handed to a translator with whom some difficulty arose, in such wise that they were transferred to another, and Ernest Vizetelly was requested to read and check the English proofs, a task which he occasionally undertook in connection with various translations. He was immediately struck by the boldness of Zola's story, which seemed to surpass in outspokenness any of the novelist's previous works. And at the very outset he deemed certain excisions and alterations advisable.