MERCIER, Louis-Sebastien

(1740-1814)

   French writer best known for his numerous plays and for his anecdotal journalism; he was active in the French Revolution, being imprisoned during the Terror. His UTOPIA, L'an deux mille quatre cent quarante 52*B]1771 UK; trans William Hooper as Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred 1772; vt Astraea's Return, or The Halcyon Days ofFrance in the Year 2440 1797), depicts a future FRANCE governed rationally, according to Enlightenment precepts as stirred by the neoprimitivism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), and is a central 18th-century text, important particularly for any analysis ofpre-Revolutionary ferment in France. It was probably the first utopia to be published in the USA, in 1795, in an edition which replicated the 1772 translation; unfortunately, LSM's expanded version of the text (1786 France) has never appeared in English.

   JC

   See also: ANONYMOUS SF AUTHORS; BALLOONS; CITIES; FUTUROLOGY; NEAR FUTURE; SUSPENDED ANIMATION.