60 The exact form of the line cited by the author does not correspond to any source that I can identify, but the promise itself—attributed to the serpent in Eden—is widely quoted. The most notorious 19th century French citation is in René de Chateaubriand’s Génie du Christianisme, but that hardly qualifies as a line of verse let alone a bad one. (It is possible that the author’s “mauvais” [bad] refers to the morality of the sentiment rather than the quality of the writing, although the grammar of the line, as rendered in French, is certainly incorrect.)
61 It is not entirely clear what the author means in saying that the Ethereals cannot conceive of abstract time, since they can understand change and velocity, and their subsequent speech is full of temporal references. The author might have in mind Henri Bergson’s contention that time had been misrepresented in Cartesian and Newtonian philosophy, which likened it to a “fourth dimension,” and ought rather to be considered as a process of “becoming.” Rosny sympathized with that view, but it is hard to believe that he could have been satisfied with the vagueness of the account given here.
62 The author inserts a footnote: “Among the Ethereals, this concordance is more extensive. Between individuals of the same species, it seems to involve the totality of the organisms.”
63 The reader will probably remember, although the author obviously does not, that the narrator has previously informed us—as recently as chapter XII—that his father is dead.
64 Rosny subsequently made another attempt, as readers will discover in volume 2 of the series, which includes “In the World of the Variants.”
65 It seems probable, in retrospect, that Rosny did not mean “planétaire” in the sense that most readers of “La Légende sceptique” would have understood it (i.e. pertaining to the planet) but in a sense more closely akin to the use he subsequently made of the same word in “La Mort de la Terre,” where it refers specifically to a kind of hypothetical communication device closely akin to a radio-telescope dish.
REFERENCES
Doumic, René. “Les Romans de M. J.-H. Rosny” Revue des Deux Mondes 129 (June 15, 1895). pp. 935-946.
France, Anatole. “J.-H. Rosny” in On Life and Letters: Third Series, tr. by D. B. Stewart. London: John Lane, 1922. pp. 267-276 and pp. 352-353. [The essays cited were first published in French in 1891.]
Huret, Jules. Enquête sur L’Evolution littéraire. Paris: Charpentier, 1891.
Morel, Jean, with Pierre Massé. “J.-H. Rosny et préhistoire.” Mercure de France, November 15, 1923. pp. 5-25.
Morel, Jean. “J.-H. Rosny aîné et le merveilleux scientifique” Mercure de France, April 1, 1926. pp. 82-94.
Renard, Jules. Extracts from Journal inédit reprinted in J.-H. Rosny Aîné: Romans préhistoriques. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1985. pp. 687-688. [The Journal inédit was originally published by Bernouard in 1927; the relevant entries were originally made in 1908.]
Renard, Maurice. “Le merveilleux scientifique et la Force mystérieuse de J.-H. Rosny Aîné.” Maurice Renard: Romans et contes fantastiques. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1990. pp. 1220-1226. [Originally published in La Vie in 1914.]
Rosny, J.-H. Aîné. Mémoires de a vie littéraire: L’Académie Goncourt; Les Salons; Quelques éditeurs. Paris: Cres, 1927.
-------. Torches et lumignons: Souvenirs de la vie littéraire. Paris: Editions “La Force Française,” 1921.
Van Herp, Jacques. “Introduction: Et la science-fiction naquit….” In Récits de science-fiction by J.-H. Rosny aîné, edited by Jean-Baptiste Baronian. Verviers, Belgium: Marabout, 1975.
Vernier, J. P. “The SF of J. H. Rosny the Elder.” Science-Fiction Studies 2:2 (July 1975). pp. 156-163.
Versins, Pierre. “Rosny aîné, J.-H.” and “Rosny jeune, J.-H.” in Encyclopédie de l’utopie et de la science fiction. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1972. pp. 775-778 & 778-779.
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION
Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
Didier de Chousy. Ignis
C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
J.-C. Dunyach. The Night Orchid; The Thieves of Silence
Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
Michel Jeury. Chronolysis
Octave Joncquel & Théo Varlet. The Martian Epic
Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
André Laurie. Spiridon
Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
Jules Lermina. Mysteryville; Panic in Paris; The Secret of Zippelius
José Moselli. Illa’s End
John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril; Doctor Lerne; The Doctored Man; A Man Among the Microbes; The Master of Light
Jean Richepin. The Wing
Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries; Chalet in the Sky
J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Helgvor of the Blue River; The Givreuse Enigma; The Mysterious Force; The Navigators of Space; Vamireh; The World of the Variants; The Young Vampire
Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
Han Ryner. The Superhumans
Brian Stableford (anthologist) The Germans on Venus; News from the Moon; The Supreme Progress; The World Above the World; Nemoville
Jacques Spitz. The Eye of Purgatory
Kurt Steiner. Ortog
Eugène Thébault. Radio-Terror
C.-F. Tiphaigne de La Roche. Amilec
Théo Varlet. The Xenobiotic Invasion
Paul Vibert. The Mysterious Fluid
Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. The Scaffold; The Vampire Soul
Acknowledgements: I should like to thank John J. Pierce for providing valuable research materials and offering advice and support. Many of the copies of Rosny’s works and critical articles related to his work were borrowed from the London Library. Also thanks to Paul Wessels for his generous and extensive help in the final preparation of this text.
English adaptation, introduction and afterword Copyright 2010 by Brian Stableford.
Cover illustration Copyright 2010 by Vincent Laik.
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ISBN 978-1-935558-35-4. First Printing. March 2010. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comics.com, LLC, P.O. Box 17270, Encino, CA 91416. All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The stories and characters depicted in this book are entirely fictional. Printed in the United States of America.
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