Le Mammouth bleu

A pioneering work of French fantasy fiction, at a time when the genre was still in its infancy, standing at the crossroads of the imaginative worlds of Jules Verne, H. P. Lovecraft and H. G. Wells, thirty years before the novels of Pierre Boulle or René Barjavel.

The novel went unnoticed on its publication in 1935, since this kind of literature was not then in fashion. The following year it received, at best, a glowing notice in the Bulletin de la Société d’études de l’Aude, of which Edmond Astruc — the true author of the novel — was a member: “the Secretary presents the latest novel, Le Mammouth bleu, offered to the Society by Luc Alberny, a pseudonym behind which our colleague Dr. Astruc modestly conceals himself. This interesting work contains a masterly description of the Gorges de Galamus and the Hermitage of Saint Antoine, and gives a most suggestive portrait of the hermit of Céans, whom the author turns into a learned geologist and archaeologist. Mr. Astruc describes, most movingly and with highly interesting technical detail, the descent into a cave crossed by a raging underground river. The president offers Mr. Astruc his congratulations and those of the Society, and thanks him for the tribute paid by his novel, which everyone will want to read.”

It is indeed an understatement to say that the learned doctor let his imagination run away with him in this delirious novel, for the reader discovers a prodigious underground kingdom beneath the south of France, meets the true King of the World, solves the mystery of the Basque language, and learns that the first intelligent species on the planet was not Homo sapiens!

The text was not reprinted until 2005.

A very fine copy, as issued, uncut and complete with its original publisher’s wraparound band.