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Dangerous Creations

Dangerous Creations

The Inventor Novel in Fin-de-Siècle France

by Ana I. Oancea

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

336 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 × 25.00 mm, 19 b&w illustrations

Hardcover
9781487546229
Published: July 2025

£56.00

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Description
Contents
Authors

Dangerous Creations presents a master narrative of the inventor in fin-de-siècle French literature by analyzing the works of Jules Verne, Albert Robida, Émile Zola, and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. Their writings challenge the role of science in shaping French national identity and aim to transform contemporary understandings of science and technology.

The book reveals how Verne, Robida, Zola, and de l’Isle-Adam reimagine the figure of the inventor, reshaping the literary standards of their time. Universally male in these narratives, the inventor serves as a flawed exemplar of national heroism during the Age of Empire – a period marked by significant external threats and internal strife – while also embodying unrestrained creativity. Ultimately, the inventor novel reflects broader French anxieties surrounding scientific progress, empire, and gender.
Ana Oancea explores the transmedia and transnational legacy of the fin-de-siècle inventor novel through vignettes that highlight similarly themed narratives in contemporary popular culture. These sections engage with films, television series, graphic narratives, and video games that reinterpret key aspects of the inventor narrative, shedding light on its power structures, racial and gender politics, and colonial aspirations.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Triumph of Official Science in Jules Verne’s Voyages extraordinaires
The Responsibilities of Official Scientists
The Scientist as National Hero
Further Avatars of Official Science
In Popular Culture: Official Science to the Rescue!

2. The Rise and Fall of Inventors’ Private Science
Becoming an Inventor
A Unique Intelligence and Sensibility
A Scientific and Artistic Demonstration
A Mad Genius
Verne’s Engineers
The Menace of Private Science
In Popular Culture: Nikola Tesla as the Inventor

3. Inventors’ Hypertechnological World in Albert Robida’s Le Vingtième Siècle
The Social and Cultural Impact of Technological Growth
Humanity Redefined through Technology
The World of Prominent Inventors
In Popular Culture: Female Inventors in Contemporary Dystopian Narratives

4. Inventing the Future of Naturalism in Emile Zola’s Travail
Naturalist Technology
Zola’s Inventor and the Utopian Technology of Travail
Rewriting Humanity and Heredity
In Popular Culture: Technology and/as the Community in Westworld

5. The Language of Artificial Life in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s L’Eve future
Edison and the Phonograph in the French Press
Villiers’s Inventor versus His Models, Faust and Prometheus
Artificial Life
Science and Literature
In Popular Culture: Villiers’s Android Reimagined as an Inventor

Conclusion

Ana Oancea is an assistant professor of French at the University of Delaware.