"Take one inventive genius indebted to the friend who saved his life; add an English aristocrat hopelessly consumed with a selfish and spiritually bankrupt woman; stir together with a Faustian pact to create the perfect woman--and voilà! Tomorrow's Eve is served. Robert Martin Adams's graceful translation is the first to bring to English readers this captivating fable of a Thomas Edison-like inventor and his creation, the radiant and tragic android Hadaly. Adams's introduction sketches the uncompromising idealism of the proud but penurious aristocrat Jean Marie Mathias Philippe Auguste, Count Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, a friend and admired colleague of Charles Baudelaire, Stèphane Mallarmé, and Richard Wagner. Villiers dazzles us with a gallery of electronic wonders while unsettling us with the implications of his (and our) increasingly mechanized and mechanical society. A witty and acerbic tale in which human nature, spiritual values, and scientific possibilities collide, Tomorrow's Eve retains an enduring freshness and edge." --Descripción del editor.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Here, presented in English in a long-belated translation by Brian Stableford, is Isis, the first novel of the acclaimed author of Contes cruels, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Deserving to be reckoned as one of the foundation-stones of Decadent prose fiction, redolent with echoes of Byron and Poe, reconfigured in the Baudelairean manner, and flamboyant with Gautieresque elements, this book is a tour de force of extravagant implication and esthetic dexterity: a work of peculiar genius. In its vaulting ambitions, its quirky mannerisms, its philosophical posturing and its lush descriptions, Isis is certainly a tale given to excess, but that excess is the essence of the endeavor, the wand of its enchantment.

Villiers De L'isle Adam was one of the greatest symbolist writers of the 19th century. His works, in the Romantic style, are often fantastic in plot and filled with mystery and horror. Originally published in 1886, 'The Future Eve' is a stunning work, noted for popularizing the term 'android'. Many of the horror stories of monsters and ghouls, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

In this collection of "Cruel Tales," we meet a unique and colorful cast of extraordinary characters such as Akedysseril the Queen of India, Mayeris the big game hunter who capured the sacred white elephant, Maryelle the courtesan, Catalina the gypsy toast of Santander, Mahoin the brigand, the murderous Doctor Hallidon, Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada and Tomolo K K the Antipodean who traversed the Earth. The Comte de Villiers de l'Isle Adam (1838-1889), pioneer of the Symbolist Movement, is known for his proto-science fiction works Axel (1885) and L'Eve Future (1886). He also wrote many "cruel tales", only a handful of which have ever been translated before this publication of The Scaffold. Poet Paul Verlaine called Villiers' works a "genial melange of irony, metaphysics and terror"and translator Brian Stableford dubs it "a bizarre literary landmark." Brian Stableford has published more than fifty novels and two hundred short stories. This book is the first English-language edition, and includes an authoritative introduction and historical notes.