The Bull-Man and the Grasshopper

Jean Richepin

Translated by Brian Stableford

 
The Bull-Man and the Grasshopper, first published in 1876 as Une histoire de l’autre monde, and here presented in English for the first time, in a translation by Brian Stableford, tells the story of Jean Pioux and Marius Mazuclard, two bizarre street performers who are arrested for participating in the brief rule of the Paris Commune and sentenced as deportees to New Caledonia.

 
An eccentric melodrama of adventure and romance, this early and fast-paced novella by the prolific Jean Richepin offers a stirring account of flamboyant grace under extreme pressure.

About the Author
Jean Richepin (1849-1926) was fined and imprisoned when his first collection of poems, La Chanson des gueux (1876) was prosecuted for obscenity. His first collection of prose, Morts bizarres, was published in the same year. He became one of the most flamboyant literary Bohemians of the fin-de-siècle, to the extent that Sarah Bernhardt—opposite whom he starred in one of his plays—declared that he was a bigger ham than she was. Amazingly, he was elected to the Académie, in a three-cornered contest against Henry de Régnier (who was elected to the next vacant chair) and Edmond Haraucourt. He was one of the most craftsmanlike mass-producers of short fiction for newspaper feuilleton slots; a sampler of his work in that vein in translation is The Crazy Corner: Horrible Stories (Black Coat Press, 2013).

Paperback, 108 pages
Release date: June 26, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1943-8136-67
USA: $12.00