19 As well as being the second letter of the Greek alphabet, Béta [Beta] is also used in French, familiarly, to denote a stupid person, as if derived from the adjective bête; thus Bétasse would mean a stupid woman. King Béta, along with his wife Bétasse, his daughter Bétinette and an astrologer named Remplumé [fledged, or, more familiarly, perked up], had previously featured in Le Mariage de Bétinette (1896), a shadow-play written for Lemercier’s puppet theater. That story ends with Bétinette’s marriage to Prince Pathos.
20 A rabotin is a plane used for smoothing wood.
21 Ratatiné means shriveled or shrunken.
22 In spite of the author’s optimism, it might not have been obvious to young readers in 1905 how Vatenlair was able to immobilize the delegates with the aid of an electromagnet. Nor will it be obvious to today’s readers, who might well suspect the author of having made a mistake. They might also wonder exactly how Betinette developed her photographs and how Vatenlair manufactured the cathode ray tube necessary to produce X-rays at such short notice.
23 Datura stramonium is the hallucinogenic jimson weed. “Saint Ignatius’ beans” are actually the seeds of fruits of a tree, Strychnos ignatii, which are rich in alkaloids, including strychnine. Curare alkaloids can be derived from numerous plants, but the liana that the author has in mind is presumably Chondrodendron tormentosum. Strophantus is a genus of plants that produce the African arrow poison ouabain, whose isolation by a French chemist in 1882 stimulated some interest in its potential medical and recreational potential.
24 This is odd, as oxygen is heavier than nitrogen, and requires constant regeneration by photosynthesis. The meteorological management systems of the year 3000 must be far more complex and ambitious that the description so far given.
25 This appears to be an error; technological climate control could not affect the Earth’s axial tilt, and the North Pole would still have days and nights six months long. There would be no dusk during the month of July, when the sun would to be in the sky continuously.
26 The lines are from act IV of Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid (1636).
27 Most coccinellids [ladybirds] are predators eating other insects, but there are a few herbivorous species, and other kinds of beetles of similar appearance were sometimes added to the category at the time when the story was written.
28 If this is construed as a disguised reference to the battle of Sedan, it might imply that this part of the story was written in 1895, long before its publication.
29 Mainomenes signifies “madmen,” as in the epithet Dionysos Mainomenos.
30 This Greek term, which refers to someone who mocks, survives in the modern designation of the psychological condition of katagelasticism, in which people enjoy laughing at others and seek opportunities to do so, as by contriving practical jokes. Wilhelm II succeeded to the German throne in 1888.
31 In the early days of the Third Republic, its presidents were elected for seven years.
32 The Greek prefix kato means lower; dipsa refers to drunkenness.
33 Book IX of Strabo’s Geographica is the second of three volumes describing the Greece of his era (the first century B.C.), commencing with Attica. It includes a brief account of the prostitutes of the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, which was greatly exaggerated by subsequent fabulists.
34 The author might have Jules Michelet’s Histoire de France, dating from the early 1860s, in mind as a model for this history of the isles of Atlantis..
35 The French canard [duck] is also a slang term for a scurrilous rumor, especially one published by a newspaper.
36 The noise ordinarily made by a duck, or a cock, is not conventionally represented in French by the onomatopoeia “Coin!” which is more often found in a popular exclamation akin to the English explanation; “Surprise!”
37 This chapter makes little sense in the context of the story, where no groundwork has been laid for it in the construction of Constantin’s character, but it might make perfect sense in the context of the publication, if one were to hypothesize that the reason that the author of Part One—who is clearly not the same person as the author of the patchwork constituting Part Two—was cruelly interrupted in its writing by death, and that the writer of Part Two undertook to finish it for him as best he could, perhaps rather belatedly, in order that it might be published. In that case, this eulogy would be tacitly addressed, not to Constantin, but to the author of Part One—perhaps Pierre Hégine, to whom there appears to be no further reference after the appearance of the book early in 1914 (it was reviewed in the 26 January issue of Gil Blas and various other newspapers between February and May; an extract—the chapter describing “the Glorious Forty”—was published in the March issue of Les Marges); Pierre Billaume’s name does appear in some subsequent references traceable though Google Books and gallica, albeit fugitively.
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
105 Adolphe Ahaiza. Cybele
102 Alphonse Allais. The Adventures of Captain Cap
02 Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
14 G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
152 André Arnyvelde. The Ark
153 André Arnyvelde. The Mutilated Bacchus
61 Charles Asselineau. The Double Life
118 Henri Austruy. The Eupantophone
119 Henri Austry. The Petitpaon Era
120 Henri Austry. The Olotelepan
130 Barillet-Lagargousse. The Final War
180 Honoré de Balzac. The Last Fay
193 Mme Barbot de Villeneuve. Beauty and the Beast
194 Mme Barbot de Villeneuve. The Naiads
103 S. Henry Berthoud. Martyrs of Science
189 S. Henry Berthoud. The Angel Asrael
23 Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse + The Seven Rings of Rhea
121 Richard Bessière. The Masters of Silence+ They Came From The Dark
148 Béthune (Chevalier de). The World of Mercury
26 Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
06 Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
173 Pierre Boitard. Journey to the Sun
92 Louis Boussenard. Monsieur Synthesis
39 Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
89 Alphonse Brown. The Conquest of the Air
98 Emile Calvet. In A Thousand Years
191 Jean Carrère. The End of Atlantis
220. Charlotte-Rose Caumont de la Force. The Land of Delights
229 Comte de Caylus. The Impossible Enchantment
40 Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
81 Félicien Champsaur. Ouha, King of the Apes
91. Félicien Champsaur. The Pharaoh’s Wife
133 Félicien Champsaur. Homo-Deus
143 Félicien Champsaur. Nora, The Ape-Woman
03 Didier de Chousy. Ignis
166 Jacques Collin de Plancy. Voyage to the Center of the Earth
97 Michel Corday. The Eternal Flame
182. Michel Corday & André Couvreur. The Lynx
113 André Couvreur. The Necessary Evil
114 André Couvreur. Caresco, Superman
115 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 1)
116 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2)
117 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 3)
67 Captain Danrit. Undersea Odyssey
184 Gaston Danville. The Perfume of Lust
149 Camille Debans. The Misfortunes of John Bull
17 C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
05 Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
227 Comtesse D.L. The Tyranny of the Fays Abolished
68 Georges T. Dodds. The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men
125 Charles Dodeman. The Silent Bomb
49 Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
144 Odette Dulac. The War of the Sexes
188. Alexandre Dumas & Paul Lacroix. The Man who married a Mermaid
145 Renée Dunan. The Ultimate Pleasure
10 Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
08 Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
233 Madame Fagnan. The Enchanter’s Mirror
01 Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
51 Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
154 Fernand Fleuret. Jim Click
108 Louis Forest. Someone Is Stealing Children In Paris
31 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
70 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega & The Shadowmen
112 H. Gayar. The Marvelous Adventures of Serge Myrandhal on Mars
88 Judith Gautier. Isoline and the Serpent-Flower
185 Louis Geoffroy. The Apocryphal Napoleon
163 Raoul Gineste. The Second Life of Dr. Albin
136 Delphine de Girardin. Balzac’s Cane
146 Jules Gros. The Fossil Man
174 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 1: The Time Spiral
175 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 2: Operation Aphrodite
176 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 3: The Man From Outer Space
177 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 4: Space Commandos
178 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 5: Our Ancestors From The Future
179 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 6: Prisoners of the Past
57 Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
134 Edmond Haraucourt. Daah, the First Human
222 Edmond Haraucourt. Dieudonat
24 Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
131 Eugene Hennebert. The Enchanted City
137 P.-J. Hérault. The Clone Rebellion
150 Jules Hoche. The Maker of Men and his Formula
140 P. d’Ivoi & H. Chabrillat. Around the World on Five Sous
107 Jules Janin. The Magnetized Corpse
29 Michel Jeury. Chronolysis [NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
55 Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
30 Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
209 Gérard Klein. Starmasters’ Gambit
210 Gérard Klein. The Day Before Tomorrow
90 Fernand Kolney. Love in 5000 Years
87 Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The Unpretentious Philosopher
101 Jean de La Hire. The Fiery Wheel
50 André Laurie. Spiridon
52 Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
82 Alain Le Drimeur. The Future City
27 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Volume 1)
28 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Volume 2)
228 Françoise le Marchand. Florine and Boca
07 Jules Lermina. Mysteryville
25 Jules Lermina. Panic in Paris
32 Jules Lermina. The Secret of Zippelius
66 Jules Lermina. To-Ho and the Gold Destroyers
127 Jules Lermina. The Battle of Strasbourg
15 Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
73 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 1: The Plutocratic Plot
74 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 2: The Transatlantic Threat
75 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 3: The Psychic Spies
76 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 4: The Victims Victorious
109 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius1: The Sculptor of Human Flesh
110 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius2: The Island od Hanged Men
111 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius3: The Rochester Bridge Catastrophe
214. Marie-Jeanne L’Heritier de Villandon. The Robe of Sincerity
96 André Lichtenberger. The Centaurs
99 André Lichtenberger. The Children of the Crab
135 Listonai. The Philosophical Voyager
157 Ch. Lomon & P.-B. Gheusi. The Last Days of Atlantis
225 Mademoiselle de Lubert. Princess Camion
197 Maurice Magre. The Marvelous Story of Claire d’Amour
197 Maurice Magre. The Call of the Beast
198 Maurice Magre. Priscilla of Alexandria
199 Maurice Magre. The Angel of Lust
200 Maurice Magre. The Mystery of the Tiger
201 Maurice Magre. The Poison of Goa
202 Maurice Magre. Lucifer
203 Maurice Magre. The Blood of Toulouse
204 Maurice Magre. The Albigensian Treasure
205 Maurice Magre. Jean de Fodoas
206 Maurice Magre. Melusine
207 Maurice Magre. The Brothers of the Virgin Gold
208 Charles Malato. Lost !
167 Camille Mauclair. The Virgin Orient
72 Xavier Mauméjean. The League of Heroes
219. Louis-Sebastien Mercier. The Iron Man
78 Joseph Méry. The Tower of Destiny
77 Hippolyte Mettais. The Year 5865
128 Hyppolite Mettais. Paris Before the Deluge
83 Louise Michel. The Human Microbes
84 Louise Michel. The New World
224 Victor-Emile Michelet. Superhuman Tales
218. L. Miral & A. Viger. The Ring of Light.
93 Tony Moilin. Paris in the Year 2000
11 José Moselli. Illa’s End
221 Comtesse de Murat. The Palace of Vengeance
226 Fernand Mysor. The Murdered City
38 John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
156 Charles Nodier. Trilby + The Crumb Fairy
04 Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
21 Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
56 Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
79 Pierre Pelot. The Child Who Walked On The Sky + What If Butterflies Cheat?
85 Ernest Perochon. The Frenetic People
161 Jean Petithuguenin. An International Mission to the Moon
141. Georges Price. The Missing Men of the Sirius
165 René Pujol. The Chimerical Quest
100 Edgar Quinet. Ahasuerus
123 Edgar Quinet. The Enchanter Merlin
192 Jean Rameau. Arrival in the Stars
60 Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
33 Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril
34 Maurice Renard. Doctor Lerne
35 Maurice Renard. The Doctored Man
36 Maurice Renard. A Man Among the Microbes
37 Maurice Renard. The Master of Light
169 Restif de la Bretonne. The Discovery of the Austral Continent by a Flying Man
170 Restif de la Bretonne. Posthumous Correspondence Volume 1
171 Restif de la Bretonne. Posthumous Correspondence Volume 2
172 Restif de la Bretonne. Posthumous Correspondence Volume 3
186 Restif de la Bretonne. The Fay Ouroucoucou 1 : The Story of the Great Prince Oribeau
187 Restif de la Bretonne. The Fay Ouroucoucou 2 : The Four Beauties and the Four Beasts
41 Jean Richepin. The Wing
12 Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries
62 Albert Robida. Chalet in the Sky
69 Albert Robida. The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul
95 Albert Robida. The Electric Life
211 Albert Robida. In 1965
151 Albert Robida. Engineer Von Satanas
46 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Givreuse Enigma
45 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Mysterious Force
43 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Navigators of Space
48 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Vamireh
44 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The World of the Variants
47 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Young Vampire
71 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Helgvor of the Blue River
217. J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Pan’s Flute
24 Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
158 Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert. The Voyages of Lord Seaton to the Seven Planets
132 Léonie Rouzade. The World Turned Upside Down
09 Han Ryner.
The Superhumans
124 Han Ryner. The Human Ant
181 Han Ryner. The Son of Silence
195 Henri de Saint-Georges. The Green Eyes
183 Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. The Crocodile
215. X.B. Saintine. The Second Life
216. X.B. Saintine Jonathan the Visionary
190 Nicolas Ségur. The Human Paradise
213. Nicolas Segur. Penelope’s Secret
122 Pierre de Selenes. An Unknown World
19 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 1. News from the Moon
20 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 2. The Germans on Venus
63 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 3. The Supreme Progress
64 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 4. The World Above the World
65 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 5. Nemoville
80 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 6. Investigations of the Future
106 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 7. The Conqueror of Death
129 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 8. The Revolt of the Machines
142 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 9. The Man with the Blue Face
155 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 10. The Aerial Valley
159 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 11. The New Moon
160 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 12. The Nickel Man
162 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 13. On the Brink of the World’s End
164 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 14. The Mirror of Present Events
168 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 15. The Humanisphere
223 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 16. Journey to the Isles of Atlantis
230 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 17. Funestine
231 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 18. The Queen of the Fays
232 Brian Stableford (Ed.). 19. The Origin of the Fays
42 Jacques Spitz. The Eye of Purgatory
13 Kurt Steiner. Ortog
18 Eugène Thébault. Radio-Terror
212. Edmond Thiaudiere. Singular Amours
58 C.-F. Tiphaigne de La Roche. Amilec
138 Simon Tyssot de Patot. Voyages and Adventures of Jacques de Massé
104 Louis Ulbach. Prince Bonifacio
53 Théo Varlet. The Xenobiotic Invasion (w/Octave Joncquel)
16 Théo Varlet. The Martian Epic (w/André Blandin)
59 Théo Varlet. Timeslip Troopers
86 Théo Varlet. The Golden Rock
94 Théo Varlet. The Castaways of Eros
139 Pierre Véron. The Merchants of Health
54 Paul Vibert. The Mysterious Fluid
147 Gaston de Wailly. The Murderer of the World
181 Willy. Astral Amour
English adaptation and introduction Copyright 2018 by Brian Stableford.
Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions Page 43
