Abstract

The Belgian author J.-H. Rosny aîné is a relative unknown. A contemporary of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, he wrote a number of science fiction stories, as well as naturalistic ones, all in French. Despite being something of a celebrity in his day, he has received scant attention from the anglophone world—a smattering of translations and a couple of Ph.D. dissertations that "tend to dismiss Rosny's 'scientific' novels and disparage SF". With this new volume, Chatelain and Slusser aim to set a foundation for, and secure an interest in, Rosny as a subject of study and to argue for his import in the history of sf. The work contains a lengthy introduction, copious notes, and a useful...