Human Life
Jules Lermina
Translated by Brian Stableford
In 1892 Jules Lermina (1839-1915) published a collection of short fiction titled La Magicienne, with the specialist occult publisher Chamuel. The current volume brings together the bulk of the material in that book, subsidized by additional items—two short occult fantasies and a humorous novelette.
For most of the twentieth century Lermina’s works were the almost-exclusive province of collectors of rare books, a situation which the present volume helps to remedy, including as it does a substantial serving of the cream, with such pieces as “The Magicienne” and “The Spell-Caster,” which are both masterpieces of occult fiction, and the title story, “Human Life,” which is a work of genius that falls outside of all genre categorization.
About the Author
Jules Lermina (1839-1915) was a radical journalist arrested more than once for subversion; he was in prison when the siege of Paris began in 1870, but appears to have been offered release if he would join the National Guard; he agreed, and was sent out of Paris to fight the Germans, thus being unable to join the Commune and avoiding subsequent transportation to New Caledonia. Chastened by the experience, he returned to Paris and journalism, becoming a successful writer of action-adventure feuilletons. When his daughter Marie-Pauline married the occult bookseller Henri Chacornac, Lermina became involved with the Occult Revival, writing several stories based on ideas fed to him by Papus. Lermina introduced occult elements into numerous stories, usually for purely melodramatic purposes, but his prestige as a writer was sufficient to prompt Papus to ask him to chair the Congress of Occult societies that he assembled in 1889.
About the Translator
Brian Stableford has been publishing fiction and non-fiction for fifty years. His fiction includes a series of “tales of the biotech revolution” and a series of metaphysical fantasies featuring Edgar Poe’s Auguste Dupin. He has previously translated for Snuggly Books a number of titles, including The Soul-Drinker and Other Decadent Fantasies by Jean Lorrain, and The Unknown Collaborator and Other Legendary Tales by Victor Joly.
Paperback, 328 pages
Release date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-64525-128-6
List Price: US$22.00