Long before George MacDonald and William Morris, Charles de Fieux, Chevalier de Mouhy (1701-1784), a one-time friend of Voltaire, prolific author of popular and mildly scandalous potboilers (including the first sensational novel about the Man in the Iron Mask) and polemicist, penned one of the first and most extravagant "Extraordinary Voyages." Lamekis was first published in eight volumes in 1735-38, then reprinted by Charles-Georges-Thomas Garnier -- who listed it, arguably, as one of the first Hollow Earth novels -- in his ground-breaking fantasy imprint of Imaginary Voyages in 1788. This...