National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 66 | December 2003


Voyages of the Imagination
‘To Speak to the Spirit and Touch the Heart’

Engraving reproduced from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in Voyages imaginaires, songes, visions, et romans cabalistiques, volume 1
Engraving reproduced from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in Voyages imaginaires, songes, visions, et romans cabalistiques, volume 1

Imaginary voyages have always been a source of fascination, from Homer to Sinbad to Dr Who. However ‘the eighteenth century provides the best approach to the imaginary voyage of all centuries’ according to Philip Babcock Gove (1902–1972) who produced a seminal work on the subject titled The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction. The National Library has many works of this genre in its collections and a recent acquisition is the 39 volume anthology, Voyages imaginaires, songes, visions, et romans cabalistiques(Imaginary voyages, dreams, visions and cabalistic stories) published in Amsterdam and Paris between 1787 and 1795. Originally issued as 36 volumes, the set was increased to 39 volumes in 1795 when Deperthes’ work, Histoires des naufrages (Stories of shipwrecks), was added. Leather bound with gilt spines, this beautiful set contains 78 engravings by Clement Pierre Marillier (1740–1808), one of the foremost book illustrators in France at that time.

The anthology contains 71 different works written originally in seven languages and here all appearing in French. It includes many well-known texts such as Defoe’s Robinson Crusoeand Swift’s Gulliver’s Travelsas well as many little-known texts such as Berington’s Memoirs de Gaudence de Lucques, Holberg’s Voyage de Nicolas Klimiusand Grivel’s L’Isle Inconnue which is noteworthy because it describes an imaginary voyage to the Pacific, and shows some awareness of the works of both Cook and Bougainville. Other stories describe adventures with pirates, journeys to the poles, the planets, the centre of the earth and other worlds, numerous shipwrecks (not just in the last three volumes), an island inhabited by people whose only occupation is love, and a land of parrots. A full list of the titles can be found in the record in the Library’s catalogue.

The anthology, considered to be one of the most comprehensive collections of its type, was compiled by Charles Georges Thomas Garnier (1746–1795) who was a distinguished barrister, writer, translator and editor. He wrote on jurisprudence, contributed to the journal Mercure de Franceand edited the works of a number of French authors. As well as writing an introduction to the anthology as a whole, Garnier also wrote an introduction to each volume in which he provided information about the authors and translators, and discussed the stories and their significance in the overall anthology.

Philip Gove declared Garnier’s anthology to be ‘the most important single publication in the history of the genre in any language’. Garnier certainly believed that the works he had chosen demonstrated the breadth and possibilities of travel to worlds only imagined. However his main reason for his choices is eloquently spelt out in his introduction where he says: ‘nous comptons parler à l’esprit, pour l’amuser & l’instruire; & au cœur, pour le toucher’ (we intend to speak to the spirit, to entertain and instruct, and to touch the heart).

Garnier divided the works into a number of categories including four types of imaginary voyages, dreams and visions, and cabalistic stories. This categorisation has caused considerable dispute over the years with many critics believing that Garnier’s arrangement is illogical and even chaotic. Added to this is the fact that a few of the works included by Garnier are believed to be accounts of true voyages. A number of possible explanations have been put forward for this apparent inconsistency, including that a work may be about a real person but not a real voyage, and perhaps more interestingly that Garnier may have been unable to find an imaginary story for a particular type of experience and so felt he could legitimately include a real story so as to produce a well-rounded collection. Whatever the reason, it has given the critics something to argue about ever since.

This fine set complements some utopian and imaginary voyage rare books acquired during 2002 which include:

All these works are housed in the Library’s Rare Books Collection. They may be used onsite but are not available for interlibrary loan. They provide a rich resource for scholars interested in this fascinating genre and in the culture of the eighteenth century, and they are a significant enhancement to our 18th century Rare Books.
—Angela Brown, Overseas Collection Development

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: mbrooks@nla.gov.au