Author | Jules Gabriel Verne |
---|---|
Original title | Une fantaisie du docteur Ox |
Language | French |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Musée des Familles |
Publication date | March 1872 |
Publication place | France |
Dr. Ox's Experiment (French : Une fantaisie du docteur Ox, "A Fantasy of Doctor Ox") is a humorous science fiction novella by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1872. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] It describes an experiment by one Dr. Ox, and is inspired by the real or alleged effects of oxygen on living things.
The setting of the story is the imaginary village of Quiquendone in West Flanders (now part of Belgium) whose citizens are described as "well-to-do folks, wise, prudent, sociable, with even tempers, hospitable, perhaps a bit heavy in conversation as in mind"; and where even "the dogs don't bite, and the cats don't scratch". Van Tricasse, the town's mayor, claims that "the man who dies without ever having decided upon anything in his life has very nearly attained to perfection." [1]
A prosperous scientist Dr. Ox comes to the authorities and offers to build a novel gas lighting system, at no cost to the town. The offer is gladly accepted. Dr. Ox and his assistant Gédéon Ygène (whose surnames happen to form the word oxygène, "oxygen") propose to use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, and pump the two gases through separate pipes to the city.
The doctor's secret plan is however to conduct a large scale experiment on the effect of oxygen on plants, animals and humans, and so he pumps an excess of the invisible and odorless gas through all lamps. The enriched air has remarkable effects on the town. It accelerates the growth of plants, and causes excitement and aggressiveness in animals and humans.
Eventually the excited citizens of Quiquendone decide to go to war against the neighboring village of Virgamen, to avenge an old offense: in 1195, a cow belonging to that town had dared to step into a Quiquendonian field and eat some mouthfuls of their grass. However, as the army was on the way to battle, an accident at Dr. Ox's plant causes oxygen and hydrogen to mix, producing a huge explosion that destroys the plant.
The story ends with the town back to its traditional slow and quiet way of life. Dr. Ox and his assistant, who were not at the plant when the accident happened, disappeared without trace.
The story Une fantaisie du docteur Ox ("A fantasy of Dr. Ox") was first read in 1872 at the Hotel of the City of Amiens. [6] It was published in installments between March and May of the same year in the magazine Musée des Familles , and from 6 January to 6 February in Journal d'Amiens . [7] [8] [9]
The story was re-published in 1874 by Hetzel as the main piece of a Verne short-story anthology, Doctor Ox , that included three older tales. [2] The spicy, ironic, satyric, and erotic elements of the original text were significantly expunged for this version. [10] [7]
The town of Quiquendone may have been intended as a caricature of Amiens, where Verne was living at the time. [11] The name of the town sounds in French as qui qu'en donne?, which could be translated as "who gives?".
The effects of oxygen on living things, as described in the story, are grossly exaggerated or even imaginary.
Dr. Ox reappears as the main villain of the play Journey Through the Impossible , written by Verne in 1882.
The original story was adapted by Jacques Offenbach as Le docteur Ox , an opéra-bouffe in three acts and six tableaux, premiered on 26 January 1877 with a libretto by Arnold Mortier, Philippe Gille and Verne himself. [12]
Another version by Annibale Bizzelli, Il Dottor Oss, was published in 1936. [13] [14]
In 1964 Pierre Max Dubois adapted the story as a ballet son a libretto by José Bruyr. [15]
It was also adapted by Gavin Bryars as Doctor Ox's Experiment , an opera in two acts with a libretto by Blake Morrison, first performed on 15 June 1998.
The H. G. Wells's novel The Food of the Gods (1904) has similarities to Dr. Ox's Experiment, "both dealing with the alterations in humankind and its environment due to changes in the chemicals the species is supplied". [16]
The story was adapted to comics strip form by Mathieu Sapin,[ citation needed ] and it inspired a 1950 comics album by André Franquin [17] It also was adapted in 1964 by Mino Milani with illustrations by Grazia Nidasio for the Italian children's magazine Corriere dei Piccoli and extended with several original stories featuring the same character, published therein from 1964 to 1969. [18]
An audio version was broadcast by the radio station France Culture in 2017. [19]
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). His novels, always well-researched according to the scientific knowledge then available, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account the technological advances of the time.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is a science fiction adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne. It is often considered a classic within both its genres and world literature. The novel was originally serialised from March 1869 to June 1870 in Pierre-Jules Hetzel's French fortnightly periodical, the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation. A deluxe octavo edition, published by Hetzel in November 1871, included 111 illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou.
Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, located 120 km (75 mi) north of Paris and 100 km (62 mi) south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in the region of Hauts-de-France and had a population of 135,429, as of 2021. A central landmark of the city is Amiens Cathedral, the largest Gothic cathedral in France. Amiens also has one of the largest university hospitals in France, with a capacity of 1,200 beds. The author Jules Verne lived in Amiens from 1871 until his death in 1905, and served on the city council for 15 years. Amiens is the birthplace of French president Emmanuel Macron.
The Voyages extraordinaires is a collection or sequence of novels and short stories by the French writer Jules Verne.
Jean François Paschal Grousset was a French politician, journalist, translator and science fiction writer. Grousset published under the pseudonyms of André Laurie, Philippe Daryl, Tiburce Moray and Léopold Virey.
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is an 1864 adventure novel by Jules Verne in two parts: The English at the North Pole and The Desert of Ice.
A Floating City, or sometimes translated The Floating City, is an adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne first published in 1871 in France. At the time of its publication, the novel enjoyed a similar level of popularity as Around the World in Eighty Days. The first UK and US editions of the novel appeared in 1874. Jules Férat provided the original illustrations for the novel.
The Vanished Diamond, also translated as The Southern Star, is an 1884 French novel credited to Jules Verne, based on an uncredited manuscript by Paschal Grousset.
The Survivors of the "Jonathan", is a novel that was written by Jules Verne in 1897 under the title Magellania. However, it was not published until 1909, after it had been rewritten by Verne's son Michel under the title Les naufragés du "Jonathan".
Doctor Ox is a collection of short stories by Jules Verne, first published in 1874 by Pierre-Jules Hetzel.
Stephen William White was the secretary of the Northern Central Railway as well as a number of other Pennsylvanian railway companies until his retirement in 1910. Today, he is best known for his English translations of Jules Verne's novels in the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.
"A Drama in the Air" is an adventure short story by Jules Verne. The story was first published in August 1851 under the title "Science for families. A Voyage in a Balloon" in Musée des familles with five illustrations by Alexandre de Bar. In 1874, with six illustrations by Émile-Antoine Bayard, it was included in Doctor Ox, the only collection of Jules Verne's short stories published during Verne's lifetime. An English translation by Anne T. Wilbur, published in May 1852 in Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature, marked the first time a work by Jules Verne was translated into the English language.
Marcel Denis was a French-speaking Belgian comics creator. He was the creator of the series Hultrasson and Les Frères Clips in Spirou magazine. He also made two episodes of Tif et Tondu. He was a part of the so-called Marcinelle School, influenced by Jijé and André Franquin.
Doctor Ox's Experiment is an opera in two acts by Gavin Bryars. It has an English-language libretto by Blake Morrison after the novella of the same name by Jules Verne. It was first performed on 15 June 1998 at the London Coliseum by English National Opera (ENO) who co-commissioned the opera with BBC Television.
Doctor Ox's Experiment can refer to:
Le docteur Ox is an opéra bouffe in three acts and six tableaux of 1877 with music by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was by Arnold Mortier and Philippe Gille, adapted from the 1872 short story Une fantaisie du docteur Ox by Jules Verne.
Journey Through the Impossible is an 1882 fantasy play written by Jules Verne, with the collaboration of Adolphe d'Ennery. A stage spectacular in the féerie tradition, the play follows the adventures of a young man who, with the help of a magic potion and a varied assortment of friends and advisers, makes impossible voyages to the center of the Earth, the bottom of the sea, and a distant planet. The play is deeply influenced by Verne's own Voyages Extraordinaires series and includes characters and themes from some of his most famous novels, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon.
Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. Most famous for his novel sequence, the Voyages Extraordinaires, Verne also wrote assorted short stories, plays, miscellaneous novels, essays, and poetry. His works are notable for their profound influence on science fiction and on surrealism, their innovative use of modernist literary techniques such as self-reflexivity, and their complex combination of positivist and romantic ideologies.
"A Winter amid the Ice" is an 1855 short adventure story by Jules Verne.
Master Zacharius, or the clockmaker who lost his soul is an 1854 short story by Jules Verne. The story, an intensely Romantic fantasy echoing the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann, is a Faustian tragedy about an inventor whose overpowering pride leads to his downfall.