The Supreme Progress
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THE SUPREME PROGRESS
Eighteen proto-science fiction tales by Paul Adam, Charles Cros, Charles Epheyre, Eugène Mouton, Louis Mullem, X.B. Saintine, Victorien Sardou
edited by Brian Stableford
cover by Mike Hoffman
It was, therefore, a woman. Glaux, piqued by curiosity, observed her movements. She went idly back and forth, I cannot say anything about her extraterrestrial beauty, or of her attire, of which our most sumptuous flowers give only a dull and monotonous idea.
This collection of 18 proto-science fiction tales, translated and edited by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, includes such ground-breaking tales as Charles Cros' An Interastral Drama (1872), about an unlawful love between an Earthman and a Venusian woman, Victorien Sardou's The Black Pearl (1862), the first romance of forensic science, Eugène Mouton's The End of the World (1872), depicting an ecocatastrophe precipitated by global warming generated by human industrial activity, and Louis Mullem's The Supreme Progress (1890), an imaginative tour de force of unprecedented scope predicting ideas that were later to be popularized by writers such as Olaf Stapledon.
All the stories included in this volume predate the first translation into French of H.G. Wells. They are representative of a distinct tradition of romans scientifiques whose cardinal influences included astronomer Camille Flammarion and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. This edition includes a historical introduction and notes by Stableford.
Contents:
The Black Pearl (1862) by Victorien Sardou
The Paradise of Flowers (1864) by X. B. Saintine
The Great Discovery of Animules (1864) by X. B. Saintine
The End of the World (1872) by Eugène Mouton
An Interastral Drama (1872) by Charles Cros
The Science of Love (1874) by Charles Cros
A Newspaper of the Future (1880) by Charles Cros
The Pebble that Died of Love (1886) by Charles Cros
The Mirosaurus (1885) by Charles Epheyre
Professor Bakermann's Microbe (1890) by Charles Epheyre
A Tale of the Future (1893) by Paul Adam
The End of a Monopoly (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
The New Year (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
The Invisibility of Monsieur Gridaine (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
Club Conversation (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
The Shadow and his Man (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
Chemical Eternity (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
The Supreme Progress (late 1880s-early 1890s) by Louis Mullem
Introduction and Notes by Brian Stableford.