Doctor Lerne - Maurice Renard

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Résumé :
Often hailed as the best French science fiction writer of the early 20th century, Maurice Renard coined the term Scientific Marvel Fiction to pen a series of gripping, ground-breaking stories that owe as much to Edgar Allan Poe as they do to H.-G. Wells. Until now, Renard was best known to the English-speaking public for his thrice-filmed thriller, The Hands of Orlac. Dedicated to Wells, Maurice Renard's Doctor Lerne (1908) features a mad scientist who performs organ transplants not only between men and animals, but also with plants, and even machines. It is the first of a series of five volumes, translated and annotated by Brian Stableford, devoted to presenting the classic works of this pioneering giant of French science fiction. This volume also includes Mr Dupont's Vacation (1905), a story about dinosaurs returning to life, and Renard's 1909 revolutionary manifesto on Scientific Marvel Fiction.

Biographie:
Maurice Renard was born on February 28, 1875, in Ch lons-en-Champagne to parents whose names are not widely recorded in available biographical sources. Renard developed a reputation as a pioneering French writer of speculative and science-based fiction. His literary career gained momentum with the publication of Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu in 1908, a novel influenced by H.G. Wells that explored themes of transplant surgery, including grafts between humans, animals, and even machines. Renard s fascination with the philosophical boundaries of science continued in Le P ril Bleu (1910), which imagined invisible extraterrestrials studying humans like specimens. He went on to write Les Mains d'Orlac (1920), in which a pianist receives the hands of a murderer, blending horror with psychological tension. His works such as L'Homme Truqu and Le Singe explored artificial senses and synthetic life. Renard also tackled miniaturization in Un Homme chez les Microbes: Scherzo and toyed with temporal physics in Le Ma tre de la Lumi re. He often challenged popular scientific concepts with creative twists, offering early critiques of invisibility and cloning. His novels reflect a blend of imagination and inquiry into the ethics and consequences of science. He died in Rochefort-sur-Mer on November 18, 1939....