Bleunard, A
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1852-1905) French academic and author whose publishers sometimes described him as a "doctor of science". His sf novel, La Babylone électrique (1888; trans "Frank Linstow White" as Babylon Electrified: The History of an Expedition Undertaken to Restore Ancient Babylon by the Power of Electricity, and How it Resulted 1889), whose English subtitle does much to describe its contents, is an exuberant demonstration of the vaunting ambitiousness of nineteenth-century science, especially in France; its argument that Babylon could be re-industrialized, and the deserts tamed, through the use of electricity and thermo-nuclear power, reflects something of the world of Jules Verne, but is clearly more exorbitant. The book was translated by the art historian Frank Weitenkampf (1866-1962) working under a pseudonym. "Toujours plus petit" (27 May-25 November 1893 La Science Illustré; trans Brian Stableford as Ever Smaller 2011) is a very early – perhaps the first sf-like – description of a shrinking man (see Great and Small). [JC]
Albert Bleunard
born France: 1852
died 1905
works
- La Babylone électrique (Paris: Maison Quantin, 1888) [hb/]
- Babylon Electrified: The History of an Expedition Undertaken to Restore Ancient Babylon by the Power of Electricity, and How it Resulted (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Gebbie and Co, 1889) [trans of the above by Frank Weitenkampf working as Frank Linstow White: hb/]
- La vengeance d'un savant ["The Scientist's Revenge"] (Paris: Maison Quantin, 1890) [binding unknown/]
- Le Spirite malgré lui ["The Reluctant Spiritualist"] (Paris: L Boulanger, 1895) [coll: title story first appeared 1889 La Science Illustré: hb/]
- "Toujours plus petit" [27 May-25 November 1893 La Science Illustré: mag/]
- Ever Smaller (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2011) [coll: trans by Brian Stableford of the above two: pb/Jean-Felix Lyon]
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