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Images of a hypothetical afterlife experienced by the human psyche following
the death of the body are among the purest products of the human imagination:
a blank canvas on which creativity can be exercised with complete freedom.
In the present volume, edited and translated by Brian Stableford, thirteen
exemplars of the genre are featured, several of which appear in English
for the first time. Including entries by such figures as Judith Gautier,
Maurice Renard, and Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, the stories included here,
though not offering "answers" to questions that are, in fact,
fundamentally unanswerable, do illustrate the fact, that just because
a question is rationally unanswerable, it does not mean that there is
no philosophical and psychological advantage to be gained by its contemplation.
There is pleasure in that contemplation, but that pleasure is dependent
on the ability to provide nourishing food for thought as well as piquant
taste sensation. Afterlife fantasies, composed with intelligence and esthetic
verve-all the examples assembled here have both-are life-enhancing, even,
and perhaps especially, when they are infernal rather than paradisal.
After all, as the French put it, c'est la vie.
CONTENTS:
Introduction, by Brian Stableford
Immortality, by Edmond Haraucourt
When We Have Passed On, by Frédéric Boutet
The Second Life, by Charles Asselineau
A Descent into Hell, by Judith Gautier
The Magnetized Corpse, by Jules Janin
Assured Survival, by Paul Vibert
The Dead Man’s Dream, by Gaston Danville
Doctor Z’s Autopsy, by Édouard Rod
The Golden Clarion and the Ebony Olifant, by Catulle Mendès
Love Among the Stars, by Camille Flammarion
Minutes, by Maurice Renard
The Phantom in the Rose, by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus
In the Afterlife, by Andre Couvreur
Cover by Odilon Redon
Published by Snuggly Books in December 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64525-114-9
