Charles Cros Book order

[i]The Science of Love and Other Writings[/i] brings together for the first time in English all the literary prose of Charles Cros. An indefinable polymath of fin-de-siécle Paris, Cros’s imagination had one foot in the literary currents of his time, and the other in the field of science. This amalgamation is fully demonstrated in this collection, which includes proto-science-fiction stories; his contributions to what was then the new form of the prose poem; a sober, if fantastical, scientific study on methods of communication with other planets; and the patent application written with his brother for a (never-built) notating keyboard.The literary imagination he was able to bring into the field of science was matched by the humorous scientific sobriety he introduced into his literature, which he did nowhere so effectively as in the title piece, “The Science of Love”: a depiction of a young scientist’s painstakingly executed seduction of a woman for the sake of scientific analysis, utilizing litmus paper and measuring releases of carbonic acid during maximized passion. Its humor led Joris-Karl Huysmans to include it in the rarefied library of À rebours, where the College de ’Pataphysique declared “An Interplanetary Drama” to be a “canonical text.” Also included are stories such as “The Newspaper of the Future” (which presents a nineteenth-century imagining of artificial intelligence) and “The Stone Who Died of Love.”

CHARLES CROS (1842-1888) was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, equally adept at poetry, fiction, and scientific inquiry. He wrote smutty verses with Verlaine, synthesized gems with Alphonse Allais, contributed wild prose fantasies to LE CHAT NOIR, and experimented with color photography and sound recording, only to die young, poor, and alcoholic. Not incidentally, he also invented the comic monologue for the actor Coquelin Cadet. In these strikingly spontaneous and modern sketches, he introduces a gallery of fools and obsessives-The Clean Man, The Fencing Master, The Capitalist, The Friend of the Family-all nattering away, assaulting the audience with trivia, and blithely unaware of their own failings. This edition collects all 22 of Cros's monologues, most translated for the first time, as well as performance notes by Coquelin and two biographical essays by his friend and colleague Alphonse Allais. "The sheer playfulness of certain fanciful parts of Cros's work must not let us forget that in the center of some of his finest poems, a revolver is aimed at us."-André Breton

Featuring 18 groundbreaking proto-science fiction tales, this collection showcases early explorations of themes such as interplanetary love, forensic science, and ecological disaster. Notable works include Charles Cros' "An Interastral Drama," which explores a forbidden romance between an Earthman and a Venusian, and Eugène Mouton's "The End of the World," addressing human-induced climate change. Edited by Brian Stableford, the anthology highlights the imaginative scope of these pioneering stories, many of which foreshadow concepts later popularized by prominent science fiction authors.