Denis Vairasse d' Allais (c.1630–1672) was a French
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
writer, especially known for his
Utopian novel, ''
History of Sevarambes''.
Biography
Vairasse was born in a Protestant lower-middle-class family in France, and belonged to the royal troops. He studied ethics, for which he was awarded a doctorate in around 1660. As a Protestant, he was forced into exile in England by the religious conflicts in France during the seventeenth century, where he wrote his ''History of the Severambians''; later translated into French and then a number of other European languages after it found popular success.
Works
''History of Sevarambes''

(Full Title: ''The history of the Sevarites or Sevarambi, a nation inhabiting part of the third continent commonly called Terræ australes incognitæ with an account of their admirable government, religion, customs, and language / written by one Captain Siden, a worthy person, who, together with many others, was cast upon those coasts, and lived many years in that country.'')
"People which live part of the unintermitting third, commonly called the southern land, containing a relation of the Government, manners, religion & language of this nation, unknown factor until now at the people of Europe", on the assumption of the existence of
Southern lands nondiscovered in Indian Ocean in the south-east of
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
.
His major work was ''Histoire of Séverambes'', a Utopian novel set in Australia, a travel story akin to
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VII ...
's
''Utopia'' and
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...
's ''
Gulliver's Travels
''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'', is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clerg ...
''. Authors such as Bayle, Rousseau, Kant and Cabet read it and were probably inspired by some parts of it, and the book was directed referenced by
Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
He is the principal so ...
in chapter VI of his book "Spirit of Laws". An innovation of this book, presented in the manner of works of geography or anthropology, was the integration in the
romance construction of direct criticism of the revealed and imposed religions, and in particular of the Catholicism of the 17th century.
Initially published in 1675 in London and in English, it then appeared in French in two parts (1677–1679), the first being, according to the author, a kind of "historical journal". Further editions were later published including one (''New edition, corrected & increased'') by
Henry Desbordes in Amsterdam in 1734.
The book was an international success, translated into several languages, "originally in English, then in a French version that spurred German, Dutch, and Italian translations (Atkinson 1920).".
[Anthropology and the savage slot:The Poetics and Politics of Otherness by Michel-Rolph Trouillot: http://www.unc.edu/~aparicio/WAN/TrouillotThesavageslot.pdf] The first French translation was in 1682 (before another version in 1702), Dutch in 1683, German in 1689 (and again in 1714), and Italian in 1728.
It was recently republished in French (based on a 1787 French edition) in a contemporary form, orthography and typography, and without the cuts made in the back issue.
See also
*
History of the Sevarambians
External links
*
*
- French Wikipedia article (original basis of this English Wikipedia article
*
– List gathering principal utopian and dystopic works of – III front J.C at our days.*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vairasse, Denis
1630s births
Year of birth unknown
1672 deaths
17th-century French male writers
17th-century French novelists
French Protestants
French male novelists