Gautier, Judith
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Working name of French poet and author Louise Charlotte Ernestine Gautier (1845-1917), daughter of Théophile Gautier, and deeply influenced in her long-standing and intense use of Oriental venues and themes by Pierre Loti (1850-1923). Her stories cannot be thought of easily as sf, but the elaborate and engaging use of myth and traditional motif makes it possible to think of her as a significant figure in the evolution of French Fantastika as a whole. After Isoline (1882 chap), collections of interest include Isoline et La Fleur-Serpent (coll 1882), which incorporates the earlier tale, and Le Paravant de soie et d'or ["The Silk and Golden Screen"] (coll 1904), with seven stories from the latter volume plus the whole of Isoline et La Fleur-Serpent trans Brian Stableford as Isoline and the Serpent-Flower (omni 2013); further volumes include Fleurs d'Orient ["Flowers of the Orient"] (coll 1893) and Les parfums de la pagode ["Perfumes of the Pagoda"] (coll 1919). The Orient she created, full of chthonic echoes whose supernatural burden seems descriptive rather than simply Romantic, became a model for some later writers, though Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung stories fatally (for some) gentrified the fruitful darkness of her best work. [JC]
Louise Charlotte Ernestine Gautier
born Paris: 25 August 1845
died 26 December 1917
works
- Isoline (Paris: Charavay Frères, 1882) [story: chap: binding unknown/]
- Isoline et La Fleur-Serpent (Paris: Charavay Frères, 1882) [coll: binding unknown/]
- Le Paravant de soie et d'or ["The Silk and Golden Screen"] (Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1904) [coll: binding unknown/]
- Isoline and the Serpent-Flower (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2013) [omni: trans by Brian Stableford of the top two titles above plus seven stories from the third: introduction by translator: pb/Mike Hoffman]
- Fleurs d'Orient ["Flowers of the Orient"] (Paris: A Colin and Company, 1893) [coll: binding unknown/]
- Les parfums de la pagode ["Perfumes of the Pagoda"] (Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1919) [coll: binding unknown/]
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