Search Worlds Without End

This collection of nine proto-science fiction tales, translated and edited by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, ranges from Louis-Sébastien Mercier's 1768 opening tale, in which the hero communicates with the dead through a beam that anticipates a modern-day laser, to an 1887 story by Guy de Maupassant that speculates on Martian life. In between, we have tales of a heart transplant, a device that can see through time and an alien dragon. The book also includes Albert Robida's classic novella "The Monkey King" in which Saturnin Farandoul, shipwrecked as a baby and raised by apes on a Pacific Island, visits the Mysterious Island and joins forces with Captain Nemo to battle the savage pirate hordes of Bora-Bora. The stories gathered here exemplify the manifest intention of writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries to create a new genre of modern, imaginative fiction, distinctively different from the Utopias and occult romances typical of the times. This edition includes a historical introduction and notes by Stableford.

Table of Contents:

• News from the Moon - short story by Louis-Sébastien Mercier (trans. of Nouvelles de la Lune 1788)
• The Embalmed Hand - short story by Adrien Robert (trans. of La main embaumée 1867)
• The Future Phenomenon - (1992) - short story by Stéphane Mallarmé (trans. of Le phénomène futur 1876)
• The Metaphysical Machine - short story by Jean Richepin (trans. of La machine à métaphysique 1876)
• The Monkey King - short story by Albert Robida (trans. of Le roi des singes 1882)
• The Historioscope - short story by Eugène Mouton (trans. of L'historioscope 1883)
• Tony Wandel's Heart - short story by Georges Eekhoud (trans. of Le cœur de Tony Wandel 1884)
• Martian Mankind - (2004) - short story by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of L'homme de Mars 1887)
• The Red Triangle - short story by Fernand Noat (trans. of Le triangle rouge 1902)

This is a new collection of 13 proto-science fiction tales and other scientific romances, penned between 1796 and 1921, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From cosmic journeys exploring Mars and Jupiter, examining the nature, languages and reproductive methods of various alien species, to the tale of a man who awakens 10,000 years in the future when the Moon has broken apart and rained debris upon the Earth and suspension bridges link the planets of the Solar System; from future war stories, the discovery of automata and telepathy, to speculations about the extraterrestrial origins of Life on Earth, the tales gathered here exemplify the manifest intention of writers from the 18th and 19th centuries to create a new genre of imaginative fiction. The title piece, written in 1913, was the first-ever published item in a series of propagandistic works of fiction by rocket enthusiasts. It is remarkable for its description of space travel, and its attempt to design a hypothetical biosphere for another planet.

Table of Contents:

• Posthumous Correspondence - short fiction by Restif de La Bretonne (trans. of Les posthumes, lettres reçues après la mort du mari par sa femme qui le croit à Florence (excerpt) 1802)
• Perfectibility - short fiction by Charles Nodier (trans. of Hurlubleu grand Manifafa d'Hurlubière ou la perfectibilité: Histoire progressive 1833)
• he Story of a Naiad - short fiction by Louis Ulbach (trans. of Histoire d'une naïade 1858)
• Astronomical Journeys - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Courses astronomiques 1864)
• War in 1894 - short fiction by Adrien Robert (trans. of La guerre en 1894 1867)
• The Origin of Life - short fiction by Eugène Mouton (trans. of L'origine de la vie 1877)
• Quiet House - (1885) - short fiction by Jules Lermina
• The Automaton - short fiction by Remy de Gourmont (trans. of L'automate 1889)
• The Future Terror - short fiction by Marcel Schwob (trans. of La terreur future 1891)
• A Rival of Edison - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Un rival d'Edison 1909)
• Erebium - (1904) - short fiction by Alphonse Allais
• The Germans on Venus - short fiction by André Mas (trans. of Les Allemands sur Vénus 1914)
• Telepathy - (1921) - short fiction by Théo Varlet

This collection of 18 proto-science fiction tales, translated and edited by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, includes such ground-breaking tales as Charles Cros' An Interastral Drama (1872), about an unlawful love between an Earthman and a Venusian woman, Victorien Sardou's The Black Pearl (1862), the first romance of forensic science, Eugène Mouton's The End of the World (1872), depicting an ecocatastrophe precipitated by global warming generated by human industrial activity, and Louis Mullem's The Supreme Progress (1890), an imaginative tour de force of unprecedented scope predicting ideas that were later to be popularized by writers such as Olaf Stapledon. All the stories included in this volume predate the first translation into French of H.G. Wells. They are representative of a distinct tradition of romans scientifiques whose cardinal influences included astronomer Camille Flammarion and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Table of Contensts

• Introduction (The Supreme Progress) - essay by Brian Stableford
• An Interastral Drama - (2010) - short story by Charles Cros (trans. of Un drame interastral 1872)
• The End of the World - short story by Eugène Mouton (trans. of La fin du monde 1872)
• The Supreme Progress - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Le progrès suprême 1894)
• The Paradise of Flowers - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Le paradis des fleurs 1864)
• The Great Discovery of Animules - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Grande découverte des animules 1864)
• The Science of Love - short fiction by Charles Cros (trans. of La science de l'amour 1874)
• A Newspaper of the Future - short fiction by Charles Cros (trans. of Le journal de l'avenir 1880)
• The Pebble That Died of Love - (1886) - short fiction by Charles Cros (trans. of Le caillou mort d'amour 1887)
• The Mirosaurus - (1885) - short fiction by Charles Epheyre (trans. of Le Mirosaurus 1893)
• Professor Bakermann's Microbe - (1890) - short story by Charles Epheyre (trans. of Le microbe du Professeur Bakermann, récit des temps futurs 1892)
• A Tale of the Future - short fiction by Paul Adam (1862-1920) (trans. of Le conte futur 1893)
• The End of a Monopoly - short fiction by Louis Mullem
• The New Year - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Fin d'année 1890)
• The Invisibility of Monsieur Gridaine - short fiction by Louis Mullem
• Club Conversation - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Causeries de cercle 1909)
• The Shadow and His Man - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of L'ombre et son homme 1904)
• Chemical Eternity - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of L'éternité chimique 1909)
• The Black Pearl - novelette by Victorien Sardou (trans. of La Perle Noire 1862)

A balloon ascent to the Heavens... A man with X-ray vision... A utopian metal city built on giant pylons above Paris... A sexless world in which women reproduce parthenogenetically and man is unknown... Is science insane? Unholy? See nine French authors of the 19th century grapple in a ground-breaking fashion with the future themes of science fiction. All the stories included in this volume predate the first translation into French of H.G. Wells. They are representative of a distinct tradition of romans scientifiques whose cardinal influences included astronomer Camille Flammarion and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2011) - essay by Brian Stableford
• A Heavenward Voyage - (1840) - short story by Samuel-Henry Berthoud (trans. of Voyage au Ciel)
• The Second Sun - short fiction by Samuel-Henry Berthoud (trans. of Le Second Soleil 1862)
• Mimer's Head - short fiction by René de Pont-Jest (trans. of La Tête de Mimer 1863)
• Wood'stown - short fiction by Alphonse Daudet (trans. of Wood'stown 1874)
• Love Among the Stars - short fiction by Camille Flammarion (trans. of Un amour des astres 1896)
• The X-Ray - short fiction by Charles Recolin (trans. of Le Rayon X 1896)
• The Mysterious Dajan-Phinn - short fiction by Michel Corday (trans. of Le Mystérieux Dajan-Phinn 1908)
• A World Above the World - short fiction by Jules Perrin and H. Lanos (trans. of Un Monde sur le monde 1911)
• Drymea, World of Virgins - short fiction by André Mas (trans. of Drymea, monde de vierges 1923)

This is a new collection of 12 French proto-science fiction tales penned between 1757 and 1924, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From a pioneering venture on the exploration of "inner space" by renowned Swiss philosopher Emerich de Vattel to visions of Paris in ruins being explored by future antiquarians; from interplanetary communication with the planet Mars to the discovery of a spaceship from Mercury, which crashed in the Antarctic, and the moving saga of the Earthmen who tried to save its alien pilot, this fifth collection provides an unparalleled view of the evolution of French scientific romances. In the title piece, Quebec helped to make up for France's lack of female genre writers with Emma-Adèle Lacerte's 1917 sequel to Jules Verne's classic tale, Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Nemoville) - (2011) - essay by Brian Stableford
• Voyages in the Microcosm - short fiction by Emerich de Vattel (trans. of Voyages dans le microcosme, par un disciple moderne de Pythagore 1757)
• Archeopolis - short fiction by Alfred Bonnardot (trans. of Archéopolis 1859)
• All the Way! The Commune in 1873 - short fiction by René de Maricourt (trans. of Au bout du fossé ! ! : la commune en l'an 2073 1874)
• The Tell-Tale Insects - short fiction by Alphonse Brown (trans. of Les insectes révélateurs 1889)
• A Professional Scruple - (1896) - short fiction by G. Bethuys
• Cataclysm - short fiction by G. Bethuys (trans. of Cataclysme 1896)
• A Message from Mars - short fiction by Paul Combes (trans. of Un message de la planète mars 1897)
• The Blue Laboratory - short fiction by Paul Combes (trans. of Le laboratoire bleu 1898)
• Nemoville - short fiction by Madame A. B. Lacerte (trans. of Némoville 1917)
• Three Hundred Years Hence - short fiction by Pierre Mille (trans. of Dans trois cents ans 1922)
• The Eternal Voyage; or The Prospectors of Space - short fiction by José Moselli (trans. of Le voyage éternel ou Les prospecteurs de l'infini 1923)
• The Planetary Messenger - (2011) - short fiction by José Moselli (trans. of Le messager de la planète 1924)

This is a new collection of seven French proto-science fiction stories devoted to explorations of the future, as imagined in the 1850s and early 1900s, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. This collection includes fantastic explorations of Future Paris by Théophile Gautier, Arsène Houssaye, Victor Fournel as well as Alfred Franklin's visionary The Ruins of Paris in 4875 (1875), Maurice Spronck's devastating criticism of socialist utopianism, Year 330 of the Republic (1894), and Jean Jullien's An Investigation of the World of the Future (1909), in which a reporter interviews scientists whose discoveries are in the process of laying the foundations for the transformation of human society.

Table of Contents:

• Future Paris - short fiction by Théophile Gautier (trans. of Paris futur 1851)
• Future Paris - short fiction by Arsène Houssaye (trans. of Le Paris futur 1856)
• Future Paris - short fiction by Victor Fournel (trans. of Paris nouveau et Paris futur 1865)
• The Ruins of Paris in 4875 - short fiction by Alfred Franklin (trans. of Les Ruines de Paris en 4908, documents officiels et inédits 1875)
• Year 330 of the Republic - short fiction by Maurice Spronck (trans. of L'an 330 de la République : XXIIe siècle de l'ère chrétienne 1894)
• An Investigation of the World of the Future - short fiction by Jean Jullien (trans. of Enquête sur le monde futur 1909)
• Hebal's Vision - short fiction by Pierre-Simon Ballanche (trans. of Vision d'Hebal, chef d'un clan écossais 1831)

In the 1890s, a generation before Hugo Gernsback, Louis Figuier, editor of the French popular science magazine La Science Illustrée, made a concerted effort to define and delimit the genre of roman scientifique, using that term to head a series of feuilletons that ran in his magazine from 1888 to 1905. This is a new collection of eight French proto-science fiction stories taken from the pages of La Science Illustrée, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. Included here are Vernian romances, tall tales featuring the dramatic extrapolation of natural phenomena, stories highlighting the scientific obsessions of geniuses with its social and psychological costs, and stories of everyday life in which scientific knowledge comes to play a significant role.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Conqueror of Death) - (2013) - essay by Brian Stableford
• The Tribulations of an Angler - short fiction by Alphonse Brown (trans. of Les tribulations d'un pêcheur à la ligne 1891)
• The Story of an Earthquake - short fiction by Camille Debans (trans. of Histoire d'un tremblement de terre 1892)
• Le Désiré - short fiction by Émile Gautier (trans. of Le Désiré, première traversée d'un bateau sous-marin 1893)
• Fire Island - short fiction by Camille Debans (trans. of L'île en feu 1893)
• Springfield's Doubloons - short fiction by Georges Price (trans. of Les 800 doublons de Springfield 1895)
• A Steam Duel - short fiction by Camille Debans (trans. of Un duel à vapeur 1895)
• The Conqueror of Death - short story by Camille Debans (trans. of Le vainqueur de la mort. Chronique des siècles à venir 1895)
• The Gold-Mines of Bas-Meudon - (1898) - short fiction by Paul Combes (trans. of Les mines d'or du Bas Meudon)

The Revolt of the Machines translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, features eight stories written between 1865 and 1918, providing a cross-section of the early development of what the editor of the 19th century magazine La Science Ilustrée, Louis Figuier, called roman scientifique [scientific fiction]. Expanding upon the scientific speculations of the day, the stories in this volume often adopt philosophical or moral tones when conceptualizing the consequences of the discovery of anti-gravity; the breakthrough finding that life is possible after death; the mass suicide of technology; a cautionary tale of the dangers of telepathy; humans being dominated by a sub-species; a man who gets lost in history; and the exploration of Earth's newest moon, the wandering planetoid Anthea. In every case, these scientific romances use scientific conjecture to tackle the eternal theme of what it means to be human.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Brian Stableford
• A Prodigious Discovery - short fiction by X. Nagrien (trans. of Prodigieuse découverte 1866)
• Dr. Z***'s Autopsy - short fiction by Edouard Rod (trans. of L'Autopsie du Dr. Z*** 1884)
• The Revolt of the Machines - short story by Emile Goudeau (trans. of La révolte des machines 1891)
• The Rival Colleagues - short fiction by Louis Valona (trans. of Confrères ennemis 1896)
• Monsieur Forbe's Hallucination - short fiction by Jules Perrin (trans. of L'Hallucination de Monsieur Forbe 1908)
• The Race That Will Be Victorious - short fiction by Jules Sageret (trans. of La Race qui vaincra 1908)
• The Veridical Ascension Through History of James Stout Brighton - short fiction by Gaston de Pawlowski (trans. of La véridique ascension dans l'histoire de James Stout Brighton 1909)
• Anthea; or, The Strange Planet - short fiction by Michel Épuy (trans. of Anthéa ou l'étrange planète 1918)