Maurice Renard
Encyclopedia
Overview
Maurice Renard was born in Châlons-en-ChampagneChâlons-en-Champagne
Châlons-en-Champagne is a city in France. It is the capital of both the department of Marne and the region of Champagne-Ardenne, despite being only a quarter the size of the city of Reims....
.
He was the author of the archetypal 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...
novel Le Docteur Lerne - Sous-Dieu [Dr. Lerne - Undergod] (1908), which he dedicated to H. G. Wells
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...
. In it, a Doctor Moreau-like mad scientist performs organ transplants not between men and animals, but also between plants and even machines.
Renard’s 1912 novel, Le Péril Bleu ("The Blue Peril") postulates the existence of unimaginable, invisible creatures who lived in the upper strata of the atmosphere and fish for men the way men captured fish. These aliens, dubbed “Sarvants” by the human scientists who discover them, feel threatened by our incursions into space the way men would be threatened by an invasion of crabs, and retaliate by capturing men, keeping them in a space zoo and studying them. Eventually, when the Sarvants come to the realization that men are intelligent, they release their captives. Le Péril Bleu predates Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
’s Book of the Damned (1919) and retains a humanistic and tolerant rather than fearful and xenophobic philosophy.
In 1920, Renard wrote the classic Les Mains d'Orlac ("The Hands of Orlac"), in which a virtuoso pianist receives the transplanted hands of a murderer and turns into a killer himself. The book was thrice adapted to film as Orlacs Hände (1924) with Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Man Who Laughs , The Thief of Bagdad and Casablanca...
, Mad Love
Mad Love (1935 film)
Mad Love is a 1935 American horror film adaptation of Maurice Renard's story The Hands of Orlac. Directed by German-émigré film maker Karl Freund, the film stars Peter Lorre as Dr. Gogol, Frances Drake as Yvonne Orlac and Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac. The plot revolves around Doctor Gogol's...
(1935) with Colin Clive
Colin Clive
Colin Clive was an English stage and screen actor best remembered for his portrayal of Dr...
and Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
, and The Hands of Orlac (1962) with Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
and Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
.
L'Homme Truqué ("The Phony Man", 1923) features the graft of “electroscopic” eyes onto a man blinded during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The result is the strange description of a world perceived through artificial senses.
L'Homme Qui Voulait Être Invisible ("The Man Who Wanted To Be Invisible", 1923) deals with the issue of invisibility; in it, Renard exposes the scientific fallacy inherent in Wells’ famous novel. Since, in order to function, the human eye must perform as an opaque dark room, any truly invisible man would also be blind!
In the controversial Le Singe ("The Monkey", 1925), written with Albert Jean, Renard imagined the creation of artificial lifeforms through the process of “radiogenesis”, a sort of human electrocopying or cloning
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
process. The novel was ferociously attacked by the Roman Catholic press, which saw it as sacrilegious, and blacklisted by public libraries.
Un Homme chez les Microbes: Scherzo ("A Man Amongst The Microbes: Scherzo", 1928) was one of the first scientific novels on the theme of miniaturization
Resizing (fiction)
Resizing , is a theme in fiction, in particular in fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction.- Early instances in fiction :...
, and one of the first to introduce the concept of a micro-world where atoms were microscopic solar systems with planets, etc. Renard’s hero submits himself willingly to a shrinking process that eventually ran out of control. As in Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
’s 1956 classic, The Incredible Shrinking Man
The Incredible Shrinking Man
The Incredible Shrinking Man is a 1957 science fiction film directed by Jack Arnold and adapted for the screen by Richard Matheson from his novel The Shrinking Man ....
, the hero is then attacked by various insects, etc., before eventually arriving on an electron-size planet, where scientifically advanced people are able to reverse the process and send him home.
Finally, Le Maître de la Lumière (The Light Master", 1933) anticipated Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, was a science fiction author and fan from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his originality and wit. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 1979 and 1980...
’s "slow glass" by introducing the concept of a glass that condenses time.
He died in Rochefort in 1939.
Selected bibliography
- Fantômes et Fantôches [Ghosts And Puppets] (As Vincent Saint-Vincent) (1905)
- Le Docteur Lerne, Sous-Dieu [Doctor Lerne, Undergod] (1908) translated by Brian StablefordBrian StablefordBrian Michael Stableford is a British science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published as by Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford...
as Doctor Lerne, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935558-15-6 - Le Voyage Immobile [The Motionless Journey] (1909) transl. as The Flight Of The Aerofix (1932); translated by Brian Stableford and included in A Man Among the Microbes, 2010, q.v.
- Le Péril Bleu [The Blue Peril] (1912) translated by Brian Stableford as The Blue Peril, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935558-17-0
- M. D'Outremort [Mr. Beyonddeath] (1913)
- Les Mains d'Orlac (1920; transl. as The Hands Of Orlac, 1929)
- L'Homme Truqué [The Doctored Man] (1921) translated by Brian Stableford as The Doctored Man, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935558-18-7
- L'Homme Qui Voulait Être Invisible [The Man Who Wanted To Be Invisible] (1923)
- Le Singe [The Monkey] (With Albert Jean) (1924; transl. as Blind Circle, 1928)
- L'Invitation à la Peur [The Invitation to Fear] (1926)
- Lui? Histoire d'un Mystère [Him? Tale Of A Mystery] (1927)
- Un Homme chez les Microbes: Scherzo [A Man Amongst The Microbes: Scherzo] (written 1908, pub. 1928) translated by Brian Stableford as A Man Among the Microbes, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935558-16-3
- Le Carnaval du Mystère [The Merry-Go-Round Of Mystery] (1929)
- La Jeune Fille du Yacht [The Young Girl From The Yacht] (1930)
- Celui Qui n'a pas Tué [He Who Did Not Kill] (1932)
- Le Maître de la Lumière [The Light Master] (1933) translated by Brian Stableford as The Master of Light, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935558-19-4