Garnier, Charles-Georges-Thomas
Entry updated 24 October 2018. Tagged: Author.
(1746-1795) French barrister, translator and anthologist whose first work of significance seems to have been Cabinet des fées, ou collection de contes des fées et autre contes merveilleux ["The Fairy Cabinet, or Collection of Fairy Tales and Other Marvellous Tales"] (1785-1789 41 vols) with Charles J de Mayer (1751-1825). Of strong sf interest is his vast Anthology of (in the main) Fantastic Voyage tales, Voyages imaginaires, Songes, Visions, et Romans Cabalistiques ["Imaginary Voyages, Dreams, Visions, and Cabbalistic Tales"] (anth 1787-1789 36vols) [for additional volumes see Checklist below], which early demonstrated, through its seventy-one selected texts, the importance of that mode over the previous centuries. Many significant stories are here translated from various languages; large-scale works translated from English include Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) (taking up the whole of the first three volumes), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726; rev 1735) (taking up volumes fourteen, plus part of fifteen) and Robert Paltock's Peter Wilkins (1751) (volume twenty-two, plus part of twenty-three). In his seminal The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction (1941), Philip Babcock Gove analyses in detail Garnier's complex presentation of his material, describing his work as "the most important single publication in the history of the genre in any language". [JC]
Charles-Georges-Thomas Garnier
born Auxerre, Burgundy, France: 21 September 1746
died Auxerre, Burgundy, France: 24 January 1795
works
- Cabinet des fées, ou collection de contes des fées et autre contes merveilleux ["The Fairy Cabinet, or Collection of Fairy Tales and Other Marvellous Tales"] (Paris: no publisher given, 1785-1789) with Charles J de Mayer [anth: place of publication also given for 1786 iteration as Paris: Cuchet: published in forty-one volumes: pb/]
- Voyages imaginaires, Songes, Visions, et Romans Cabalistiques ["Imaginary Voyages, Dreams, Visions, and Cabbalistic Tales"] (Paris: Rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1787-1789) [anth: place of publication also given as Amsterdam, but Paris may be the sole true location: published in thirty-six volumes: but see below: pb/]
- Histoire des naufrages, ou recueil des relations les plus intéressantes des naugrages, hivernemens, délaissemens, incendies, famines, & autre evènements funest sur mer ["History of Shipwrecks, or Collection of Interesting Reports of Shipwrecks, Winterings, Abandonments, Fires, Famines, and Other Fatal Events on the Sea"] (Paris: Rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1789) [anth: published in three volumes: place of publication also given as Amsterdam, but Paris may be the sole true location: annexed to Voyages imaginaires above: hence bibliographic accounts of the original being published in thirty-nine volumes: pb/]
about the author
- Philip Babcock Gove. The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction: A History of its Criticism and a Guide for its Study, with an Annotated Check List of 215 Imaginary Voyages from 1700 to 1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941) [nonfiction: discusses Garnier throughout: in the publisher's Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature series: hb/]
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