Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu

Maurice Renard’s 1908 fantasy novel *Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu* (published in English as *New Bodies for Old* and later as *Doctor Lerne*) follows a narrator who, like the protagonist of H. G. Wells’s *The Island of Doctor Moreau*, encounters a mad surgeon. The key difference is that the narrator himself ends up as the subject of Doctor Lerne’s transplant experiments. Renard dedicated the novel to Wells in its preface. The book has been translated into many languages and is now in the public domain.

First published in Paris by Mercure de France in 1908, a second edition with illustrations by Joseph Hémard appeared the same year from Editions G. Crès. An illustrated edition followed in 1919. Later French editions include Tallandier (1958), Belfond (1970, as part of the “Domaine fantastique” series), Marabout (1976), Robert Laffont (1990, in a collection of Renard’s fantastic tales), and José Corti (2010).

An English translation came out in New York from The Macaulay Company in 1923 under the title *New Bodies for Old*. A later adaptation by Brian Stableford was published in 2010 as *Doctor Lerne*.

A television adaptation, *L’étrange château du docteur Lerne*, directed by Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, aired on the French channel Antenne 2 on December 28, 1983.

The full text of the original 1908 French edition is available on Wikisource, as is the 1923 English edition. The 1923 English text can also be found on Project Gutenberg.