Gozlan, Léon
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1806-1866) French political journalist, feuilletonist, playwright and author, one of whose many novels is an sf Satire, Les Émotions de Polydore Marasquin; ou, Trois mois parmi les singes (1856 Journal Pour Tous; 1857; trans anon as The Man Among the Monkeys; Or, Ninety Days in Apeland. To Which Are Added The Philosopher and his Monkey, The Professor and the Crocodile, and Other Strange Stories of Men and Animals, anth 1873) [see Checklist for further translations], in which the castaway Marasquin becomes king of a tribe of intelligent though basically hostile tool-bearing monkeys (see Apes as Human; Tarzan). It is not known if any of the translations were adapted in order specifically to satirize the theory of Evolution. A later tale, Le Vampire du Val-de-Grace (1861; trans Brian Stableford as The Vampire of the Val-de-Grace 2012), less ambitiously traces the threat of a Vampire to members of its putative family, and to the world at large. [JC]
Léon Gozlan
born Marseilles, France: 1 September 1806
died Paris: 14 September 1866
works
- Aventures Merveilleuses et Touchantes du Prince Chevenis et sa Jeune Soeur (Paris: Jules Hetzel, 1846) [chap: hb/Bertall]
- The Strange and Interesting Adventures of Prince Hempseed and His Little Sister (London: Chapman and Hall, 1847) [chap: trans anon of the above: in the publisher's Picture Story Books by Great Authors and Great Painters series: illus/Bertall: pb/uncredited]
- Les Émotions de Polydore Marasquin; ou, Trois mois parmi les singes (Paris: Lévy Michel Frères, 1857) [first appeared 1856 Journal Pour Tous: hb/Gustave Doré]
- The Man Among the Monkeys; Or, Ninety Days in Apeland. To Which Are Added The Philosopher and his Monkey, The Professor and the Crocodile, and Other Strange Stories of Men and Animals (London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1873) [anth: including trans of the above: illus/hb/Gustave Doré]
- The Emotions of Polydore Marasquin (London: Vizetelly and Company, 1887) [book is dated 1888: trans of the above: hb/]
- Monkey Island; or, The Emotions of Polydore Marasquin (London: Frederick Warne, 1888) [trans by Charles S Cheltham of the above: hb/]
- Le Vampire du Val-de-Grace (Paris: E Dentu, 1861) [binding unknown/]
- The Vampire of the Val-de-Grace (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2012) [trans by Brian Stableford of the above: introduction by the translator: pb/Mandy]
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