Gustave Le Rouge
Encyclopedia
Gustave Henri Joseph Le Rouge (22 July 1867 - 24 February 1938) was a French writer who embodied the evolution of modern science fiction
at the beginning of the 20th century, by moving it away from the juvenile
adventures
of Jules Verne
and incorporating real people into his stories, thus bridging the gap between Vernian and Wellsian
science fiction.
, Manche
.
He burst onto the literary scene with La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires' Conspiracy] (1899-1900), co-written with Gustave Guitton, in which American billionaire William Boltyn uses Thomas Edison
's "Metal Men" (Karel Čapek
coined the term "robot
" only in 1920) and the power of mediums
to try to become master of the world. Le Rouge and Guitton went on to produce two more novels in the same vein, La princesse des airs [The Princess of the Skies] (1902) and Le sous-marin Jules Verne [The Submarine Jules Verne] (1903).
After they quarreled and went their separate ways, Le Rouge continued to produce solo fiction such as L'Espionne du Grand Lama (1906), which introduced a Lost World
inhabited by prehistoric creatures and La Reine des Éléphants [The Queen of Elephants] (1906), which featured a society of intelligent elephants.
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin
's Doctor Omega
(1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs
' A Princess of Mars
(1912), Le Rouge's masterpiece was Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars
by the psychic powers of Hindu
Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain
. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth. Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis
' Out of the Silent Planet
(1938). Planetary romance
blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.
In 1907, Le Rouge first made the acquaintance of the Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars
, who later painted an affectionately colorful portrait of him in his memoir L’homme foudroyé (1945).
Le Rouge's classic mad scientist
/ conspiracy
saga is Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius (1912-13). Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant cosmetic surgeon nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" for his ability to alter people's likenesses. The Red Hand's growing, global, evil influence eventually causes the creation of an alliance of heroes, led by Dr. Prosper Bondonnat, billionaire William Dorgan and Lord Burydan, who band together to fight and, ultimately, defeat them.
During World War I, Le Rouge became a war correspondent
for various magazines, eventually settling into a long-term position with Le Petit Parisien
. He continued to produce books of various sorts, including some pioneering exercises in spy fiction
and some detective fiction
throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but none of his later works made any considerable impact.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
at the beginning of the 20th century, by moving it away from the juvenile
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
adventures
Adventure novel
The adventure novel is a genre of novels that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme.-History:...
of Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
and incorporating real people into his stories, thus bridging the gap between Vernian and Wellsian
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
science fiction.
Biography
Le Rouge was born at ValognesValognes
Valognes is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.It lies on the Merderet river, southeast of Cherbourg.-History:...
, Manche
Manche
Manche is a French department in Normandy named after La Manche , which is the French name for the English Channel.- History :Manche is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
.
He burst onto the literary scene with La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires' Conspiracy] (1899-1900), co-written with Gustave Guitton, in which American billionaire William Boltyn uses Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
's "Metal Men" (Karel Čapek
Karel Capek
Karel Čapek was Czech writer of the 20th century.-Biography:Born in 1890 in the Bohemian mountain village of Malé Svatoňovice to an overbearing, emotional mother and a distant yet adored father, Čapek was the youngest of three siblings...
coined the term "robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
" only in 1920) and the power of mediums
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
to try to become master of the world. Le Rouge and Guitton went on to produce two more novels in the same vein, La princesse des airs [The Princess of the Skies] (1902) and Le sous-marin Jules Verne [The Submarine Jules Verne] (1903).
After they quarreled and went their separate ways, Le Rouge continued to produce solo fiction such as L'Espionne du Grand Lama (1906), which introduced a Lost World
Lost World (genre)
The Lost World literary genre is a fantasy or science fiction genre that involves the discovery of a new world out of time, place, or both. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian imperial romance and remains popular to this day....
inhabited by prehistoric creatures and La Reine des Éléphants [The Queen of Elephants] (1906), which featured a society of intelligent elephants.
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin
Arnould Galopin
Arnould Galopin was a prolific French writer with more than 50 novels to his credit. Galopin won the French Academy's Grand Prize for his Sur le Front de Mer , a critically acclaimed novel about the Merchant Navy during World War I, and wrote several equally acclaimed novels about his experiences...
's Doctor Omega
Doctor Omega
Doctor Omega is a fictional character created by French writer Arnould Galopin for his science fiction novel Le Docteur Oméga , visibly inspired by H. G...
(1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
' A Princess of Mars
A Princess of Mars
A Princess of Mars is a science fiction novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Barsoom series. It is also Burroughs' first novel, predating his famous Tarzan series. Full of swordplay and daring feats, the novel is considered a classic example of 20th century pulp fiction...
(1912), Le Rouge's masterpiece was Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
by the psychic powers of Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth. Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
' Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet
Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of a science fiction trilogy written by C. S. Lewis, sometimes referred to as the Space Trilogy, Ransom Trilogy or Cosmic Trilogy. The other volumes are Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, and a fragment of a sequel was published posthumously as The...
(1938). Planetary romance
Planetary romance
Planetary romance is a type of science fiction or science fantasy story in which the bulk of the action consists of adventures on one or more exotic alien planets, characterized by distinctive physical and cultural backgrounds...
blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.
In 1907, Le Rouge first made the acquaintance of the Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars
Blaise Cendrars
Frédéric Louis Sauser , better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized French in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the modernist movement.-Early years:...
, who later painted an affectionately colorful portrait of him in his memoir L’homme foudroyé (1945).
Le Rouge's classic mad scientist
Mad scientist
A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...
/ conspiracy
Conspiracy fiction
The conspiracy thriller is a subgenre of thriller fiction. The protagonists of conspiracy thrillers are often journalists or amateur investigators who find themselves pulling on a small thread which unravels a vast conspiracy that ultimately goes "all the way to the top"...
saga is Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius (1912-13). Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant cosmetic surgeon nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" for his ability to alter people's likenesses. The Red Hand's growing, global, evil influence eventually causes the creation of an alliance of heroes, led by Dr. Prosper Bondonnat, billionaire William Dorgan and Lord Burydan, who band together to fight and, ultimately, defeat them.
During World War I, Le Rouge became a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for various magazines, eventually settling into a long-term position with Le Petit Parisien
Le Petit Parisien
Le Petit Parisien was a prominent French newspaper during the French Third Republic. It was published between 1876 and 1944, and its circulation was over 2 million after the First World War.-Publishing:...
. He continued to produce books of various sorts, including some pioneering exercises in spy fiction
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
and some detective fiction
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but none of his later works made any considerable impact.