My Lunatic Asylum

Charles Barbara (1817-1866) though principally remembered today for being a friend of Baudelaire was arguably one of the more influential writers of his time being one of the earliest authors of science fiction Naturalism and the roman policier.The present volume originally published as Mes petites-maisons in 1860 and here offered in English for the first time in a translation by Brian Stableford brings together six of Barbaras best tales presented something in the manner of case studies. From Outline of the Life of a Virtuoso in which we follow the career of an obsessed violinist and Major Whittington a classic science fiction novella that overflows with technological excesses to the psychological Irma Gilquin the current selection reveals a writer whose influences were wide whose ambitions were great and whose previous neglect has been grossly unfair.