Germinal

The census is right that the Charpentier 1885 is the French book first and that serialisation in Gil Blas (November 1884 to February 1885) preceded it — periodical appearance, not book precedence. Both editions are collected: the Charpentier French first and the Vizetelly London 1885 first English, which appeared the same year. The census's causal claim is wrong and is corrected here: Henry Vizetelly's 1888 Old Bailey prosecution for obscene libel was brought over La Terre, not Germinal. The conviction then swept his entire Zola list — Germinal among the translations banned from circulation — and Vizetelly was fined and imprisoned in 1889. Germinal was therefore suppressed by the prosecution, not the cause of it.