Three Science Fiction Novellas: From Prehistory to the End of Mankind
Page 30
Arthur B. Evans has published several articles that discuss Rosny: “Science Fiction vs. Scientific Fiction in France: From Jules Verne to J.-H. Rosny Aîné,” Science-Fiction Studies 15 (1), 44 (March 1988), 1–11; “Science Fiction in France: A Brief History,” Science-Fiction Studies 16 (3), 49 (November 1989), 254–76; “Functions of Science in French Fiction,” Studies in the Literary Imagination 22, 1 (spring 1989), 79–100; Evans’s article “The Origins of Science-Fiction Criticism: From Kepler to Wells,” Science-Fiction Studies 26 (2), 78 (July 1999), 16–38, discusses Rosny’s pluralist vision.
A summary version of Eric Lysoe’s 1999 article “The War for Fire: An Epic Vision of Evolution,” translated by Stephen Trussel (available at the website Prehistoric Fiction: www.trussel.com/f_prehis.htm), served as afterword to a new edition of La Guerre du feu (Arles: Babel, 1994).
A review by Edward James of Human Prehistory in Fiction, by Charles De Paolo, Science-Fiction Studies 31.1 (March 2004), 321–30, has remarks on Rosny’s prehistoric fiction.
“Jules Verne and J.-H. Rosny aîné: The Science in the Fiction,” a paper by George Slusser, was presented at the annual meeting of the North American Jules Verne Society, Albuquerque, June 7–10, 2007.
The twenty-first century has seen signs of a strong reviving interest in Rosny’s SF in the francophone world; these include the following two collections of significant essays.
Three-quarters of the essays in Arnaud Huftier, ed., La Belgique: Un jeu de cartes? De Rosny à Jacques Brel (Valenciennes, France: Presses universitaires de Valenciennes, 2003), by Gérard Klein, Arnaud Huftier, Roger Bozzetto, Daniel Compère and others, all in French), are devoted to establishing a “cartographie” of Rosny’s work.
Otrante No. 19–20: Rosny aîné et autres formes (Paris: Editions Kimé, 2006), a collection of essays (again by Roger Bozzetto, Arnaud Huftier, and Daniel Compère, as well as Eric Lysoe and Daniel Fondanèche, all in French), was sponsored by the Groupe d’étude des esthétiques de l’étrange et du fantastique de Fontenay.
A conference on Rosny was held in Bayeux, France, November 16–17, 2006; presenters included Arnaud Huftier and Eric Lysoe, as well as a number of scholars from French and Italian universities. Paper sections were (1) “Fonder un monde”; (2) “Les Mondes romanesques”; (3) “Un Monde à part?” and (4) “Autres mondes.” The papers, as yet unpublished, are all in French.
The Wesleyan Early Classics
of Science Fiction Series
General Editor • Arthur B. Evans
The Centenarian
Honoré de Balzac
Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain
Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, eds.
Imagining Mars: A Literary History
Robert Crossley
Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century
Ignatius Donnelly
Subterranean Worlds: A Critical Anthology
Peter Fitting, ed.
Lumen
Camille Flammarion
The Last Man
Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville
The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction
Justine Larbalestier
The Yellow Wave: A Romance of the Asiatic Invasion of Australia
Kenneth Mackay
The Moon Pool
A. Merritt
The Black Mirror and Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Austria
Mike Mitchell, tr., and Franz Rottensteiner, ed.
Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction
John Rieder
The Twentieth Century
Albert Robida
Three Science Fiction Novellas: From Prehistory to the End of Mankind
J.-H. Rosny aîné
The Fire in the Stone: Prehistoric Fiction from Charles Darwin to Jean M. Auel
Nicholas Ruddick
The World as It Shall Be
Emile Souvestre
Star Maker
Olaf Stapledon
The Begum’s Millions
Jules Verne
Invasion of the Sea
Jules Verne
The Kip Brothers
Jules Verne
The Mighty Orinoco
Jules Verne
The Mysterious Island
Jules Verne
H. G. Wells: Traversing Time
W. Warren Wagar
Star Begotten
H. G. Wells
Deluge
Sydney Fowler Wright
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
J.-H. ROSNY AÎNÉ (pseudonym of Joseph Henri Honoré Boëx) was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1856. An autodidact, Rosny spent eleven years in England (1873–1884), where he was exposed to evolutionary theory. Relocating to Paris in 1884, he published two novels in 1887—Les Xipéhuz_and Nell Horn de l’Armée du Salut—which launched a successful literary career in two distinct genres: prehistoric and science fiction, and naturalism. Rosny adopted the designation “ainé” (senior) to distinguish himself from his younger brother and (until 1909) collaborator Justin, who signed “Rosny jeune” (junior). Edmond de Goncourt, the high priest of naturalism, befriended Rosny; after the former’s death, Rosny served as president of the Académie Goncourt, a prestigious literary honor. Rosny was also highly respected by the French scientific establishment, and in 1925 published the acclaimed Les sciences et le pluralisme. He remained active in French literary and scientific circles until his death in 1940, on the eve of the German entry into Paris.
GEORGE SLUSSER is professor of comparative literature and curator of the Eaton Collection at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author, editor, and/or translator of thirty-six books and has published more than a hundred articles on comparative literature and science fiction topics. He is a recipient of the Pilgrim Award of the Science Fiction Research Association, for advancement of the field of SF studies.
DANIÈLE CHATELAIN is professor of French at the University of Redlands. She is the author of Perceiving and Telling: A Study of Iterative Discourse (1998); coeditor of H. G. Wells’s Perennial Time Machine (2001); and coauthor and translator, with George Slusser, of the critical edition of Balzac’s The Centenarian (2005).