Pierre Martin Désiré Eugène Mouton (12 April 1823, in
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
– 8 June 1902, in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
) was a French writer of comic, adventure, and fantastical literature, and is considered an early writer of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
. He wrote under the name ''Mérinos''. The son of a military officer father and a
Creole mother, he lived in
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...
until the age of ten. In 1848 he became a magistrate; his career progressed upward for the next 20 years, and he rose to the rank of prosecutor. During his time in
Rodez
Rodez ( or ; oc, Rodés, ) is a small city and commune in the South of France, about 150 km northeast of Toulouse. It is the prefecture of the department of Aveyron, region of Occitania (formerly Midi-Pyrénées). Rodez is the seat of the ...
he helped to implement one of the first mobile libraries in France.
He wrote for various newspapers, and his first story was published in 1857 when ''L'Invalide à la tête de bois'' (''The Invalid with the Wooden Head'') appeared in ''
Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
'' under the pen name of Mérinos. His subsequent success caused him to resign from the magistracy in 1868 in order to devote himself to writing. His principal works are ''Les lois pénales en France'' (1868), ''Nouvelles et fantaisies humoristisques'' (1873 and 1876), ''Voyages et aventures du Marius Cougourdan'' (1879), and ''Histoire de l'invalide à la tête de bois'' (1887).
External links
Le Matricule des Anges
French science fiction writers
1823 births
1902 deaths
French male novelists
19th-century French novelists
19th-century French male writers
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