On 23 February 1898, the novelist was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment after writing ‘J’accuse’, an open letter to the French government accusing it of antisemitism in the Dreyfus affair

He painted his wife without lips. He painted his friend with a spinal deformity. And he painted himself as a ghost in a top hat. Paul Cézanne’s unflinching portraits, coming to Britain this autumn, didn’t just astonish Picasso and his disciples. They changed art for ever

Forced into exile after getting caught up in a high-profile trial, the great French novelist spent Christmas 1898 in hiding in a south London suburb

From Orwell’s satire to Woolf’s room of her own, great writers have shown us the personal and political freedoms that must be fought for and cherished

It’s a torrid tale of murder and sexual obsession – but you wouldn’t know it from this damp production, Knightley’s Broadway debut, which alternately inspires yawns and giggles

Dickens, Zola and early 20th-century timetables all transport the reader, finds novelist and railway fanatic Andrew Martin

Emile Zola's feverish, intense novel is exactly realised in this ultra-theatrical production, writes Michael Billington