Jonathan The Visionary X B Saintine by X. B. Saintine 9781612277516, 1612277519 instant download after payment.

“L’Histoire de Jonathan le visionnaire” (here tr. as “The Story of Jonathan the Visionary”) by X. B. Saintine was initially published in 1823 in volume 2 of Le Mercure du dix-neuvième siècle, where it served as an introduction to a series of stories allegedly told by the eponymous character, three of which—“Séthos et Cléophas” (“Sethos and Cleophas”) “Le Jeune boyard” (“The Young Boyar”) and “La Mésalliance” (“The Misalliance”)—appeared in the same volume.

Jonathan the Visionary (1823) is a collection of fantasy tales, translated here for the first time, and told by a mysterious immortal called Jonathan (who is only featured as an active narrator in a few of them). It includes The Story of an Antediluvian Civilization, which retells the history of a civilization from Ethiopia, only a few distant echoes of which survive today. Ranging from prehistorical fantasy to post-apocalypse, it provides a prophetic indication of the manner in which our own civilization might degenerate. The fact that scientific and technological progress is presented here as a symptom of social disease makes Saintine’s vision more modern and radical than any of his contemporaries.

X. B. Saintine (1795-1865) was a prolific dramatist who collaborated in more than 200 plays with Eugène Scribe and a noted figure of the Romantic Movement.