Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until
she is discovered at the Théâtre des Variétés. She soon rises from the
streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of
her day. Rich men, Comtes and Marquises fall at her feet, great ladies try
to emulate her appearance, lovers even kill themselves for her. Nana's
hedonistic appetite for luxury and decadent pleasures knows no bounds -
until, eventually, it consumes her. Nana provoked outrage on its
publication in 1880, with its heroine damned as 'the most crude and bestial
sort of whore', yes the language of the novel makes Nana almost a mythical
figure: a destructive force preying on a corrupt society.