Perfectibility and Resurrection
Charles Nodier
Translated by Brian Stableford
This collection of works by Charles Nodier (1780-1844) juxtaposes three essays with six items of fiction, all the items being concerned to some degree with what he called the fantastique, a genre of literature that he helped to define and in which he was greatly interested. Such a mixture is useful because it is impossible fully to appreciate his relevant works of fiction-of which the items included herein are a very limited sample-without some knowledge of the philosophical and psychological context by which they were inspired, and which their composition helped him continually to reformulate.
Two of the contes are incomplete, but a knowledge of the nature and subject matter of the essays enables conjectures to be formed as to how the stories might have developed had they been continued, and perhaps also why they were not.
As an ensemble, therefore, the stories and essays provide a spectrum illustrating and embodying the awkward evolution of Nodier’s ideas in the course of his troubled life and career, offering insight into the way that the development of his personal philosophy both assisted and impeded the exemplary contributions he made to the literature of the French Romantic Movement.
About the Author
Charles Nodier (1780-1844) was one of the pioneers of French Romantic prose; his salon at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, begun in 1824 and known as Le Cénacle, brought together many of the key figures in the Movement and spun off other cénacles in which it was anchored, including Victor Hugo’s. His best work consists of short stories and novellas.
About the Translator
Brian Stableford has been writing for fifty years. His fiction includes include eleven novels and seven short story collections in a series of “tales of the biotech revolution”; a series of metaphysical fantasies set in Paris in the 1840s, featuring Edgar Poe’s Auguste Dupin, most recently Yesterday Never Dies (2012); and a series of supernatural mysteries set in an artist’s colony, most recently The Pool of Mnemosyne (2018). Recent novels independent of any series include Vampires of Atlantis (2016) and The Tangled Web of Time (2016). He also translates antique works from the French, with particular interests in the Symbolist and Decadent Movements, roman scientifique and the fantastique.
Paperback, 286 pages.
Release date: July 8, 2025
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-179-8
Price: US$25.00