The first English collection of Cros’ writings: from treatises on interplanetary communication to a sardonic science of seduction An indefinable polymath of fin de siècle Paris, Charles Cros made work that was simultaneously grounded in literature and science. The Science of Love and Other Writings brings together for the first time in English all of his literary prose. The collection includes proto-science-fiction stories; prose poems; an essay on methods of communication with other planets; and the patent application written with his brother for a (never-built) notating keyboard. The literary imagination Cros was able to bring into the field of science was matched by the humorous scientific sobriety he introduced into his literature, which he did nowhere so effectively as in the title piece, “The Science of Love”: depicting a young scientist’s painstakingly executed seduction of a woman for the sake of scientific analysis. Also included are stories such as “The Newspaper of the Future” (which presents a 19th-century imagining of artificial intelligence) and “The Stone Who Died of Love.” Charles Cros (1842–88) was a French writer and inventor. He is credited with submitting the earliest method for recording sound, but his idea for the “Paleophone” was obscured by Thomas Edison’s patent for the phonograph less than a year later.

For readers both interested in science and unperturbed by the aspect of casual fugues between consenting rocks and fissures and related phenomena, 'The Science of Love' is your book. Hats off to Doug Skinner and his relentless quest to find and translate into English unknown and little-known gems from the French humanities. -- Tom Bowden * Book Beat *