Pierre Martin Désiré Eugène Mouton (12 April 1823, in
Marseille
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
– 8 June 1902, in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
) was a French writer of comic, adventure, and fantastical literature, and is considered an early writer of
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
. He wrote under the name ''Mérinos''. The son of a military officer father and a
Creole mother, he lived in
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...
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 (, , ; , ) 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 communau ...
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
() is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, Beaumarchais (1732–1799): ''Le Barbier de Séville'', ''The Guilty Mother, La Mère coupable'', ...
'' 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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