This volume is the first of a set of three books showcasing the work of Frederic Boutet, the other two volumes being The Voyage of Julius Pingouin and Other Strange Stories and Claude Mercoeur's Reflection and Other Strange Stories. Viewed as an ensemble, they illustrate the range and development of Boutet's early work, and provide representative samples of its later evolution. Although several stories by Boutet were translated into English in the 1920s, especially in America, they were selected from his later works, when he was writing sentimental stories and crime fiction for popular...

S. Fowler Wright's novel, The World Below, one of the classics of British scientific romance, was hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction when it was published in the U.S. Originally intended as a trilogy, the novel was cut short when Wright's business went bankrupt. Now Brian Stableford, with the permission of the author's estate, has penned the sequel that master never had the chance to finish.

VOYAGE BENEATH THE WAVES was published two years prior to Jules Vernes Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne, when he became aware of Jules Rengades serial version, felt obliged to write the magazine editor to set the record straight--HED developed the idea independently! In fact, the influence was very much the other way around: although Rengade had come up with the idea of an imaginary voyage of submarine exploration separately, hed modeled his narrative style on Vernes, thus producing the first "Vernean" novel written by someone other than the great man himself. This is the first...

The modern literary archetype of the mad scientist was wonderfully incarnated in the French proto-science fiction saga of The Mysterious Dr. Cornelius, a sprawling novel serialized in eighteen volumes in 1912-13, written by the prolific Gustave Le Rouge, author of The Vampires of Mars and The Dominion of the World. Dr. Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant surgeon, nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" because of his diabolical ability to alter people's likenesses through the science of carnoplasty. One of...

The Vampires of London (1852) is a nested series of contes cruels aggregated into a quintessentially Romantic roman frenetique, and one of the most excessive and convoluted works of that kind. Some of the scenes featuring the necrophilic vampire Lord Lodore or the one in which a young man tries to pimp his sick sister to a resurrectionist are masterpieces of the grotesque. Angelo de Sorr (1822-1881), the son of a family of vine-growers in Bordeaux, made his debut as a novelist in 1848 and eventually went on to build a substantial career, working as a writer for various periodicals and...

In An Invasion of Macrobes (1909), Professor Tornada, unhinged by the death of his wife and daughter, and unable to withstand the blow of having been rejected by the French Academy, unleashes giant, flesh-eating bacteria, immune to the assaults of artillery and high explosives, on Paris, intent on smashing it flat. In the ground-breaking The Androgyne (1922), Tornada turns a man into a woman. Andre Couvreur (1865-1944) was a medical doctor who penned several medical treatises, and was also the author of eight romans scientifiques dealing with "medical concepts" featuring the mad scientists...

In The Phosphorescent Waltzer(1923), the indomitable Professor Tornada creates an android and in Memoirs Of An Immortal(1924), he tackles the concept of suspended animation. Andre Couvreur (1865-1944) was a medical doctor who penned several medical treatises, and was also the author of eight romans scientifiques dealing with "medical concepts" featuring the mad scientists Doctor Caresco, then Professor Tornada. These are collected in a series of five volumes, translated and annotated by Brian Stableford, presenting for the first time the ground-breaking works of this pioneer of French science...

In The Biocole (1927), Professor Tornada conquers death itself and becomes the creator and virtual god of a utopian enclave called Biocolia. In The Case of Baroness Sasoitsu (1939), the eccentric scientist solves a baffling murder case by using his psychovisor which translates thoughts into images. The book also includes the novella In the Afterlife (1936), a story in a lighter comic vein. Andre Couvreur (1865-1944) was a medical doctor who penned several medical treatises, and was also the author of eight romans scientifiques dealing with "medical concepts" featuring the mad scientists...