Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam: L’Ève future (1886-) [French]

The young Lord Ewald is close to suicide because of his beautiful but emotionally and intellectually stuck fiancée. His friend, engineer Thomas Edison, replies by offering to construct for him a machine-woman in the form of his fiancée but without any of her bothersome personality.

The Future Eve (or Tomorrow’s Eve) has been discussed as a key text in the Decadent movement, and as an important work of 19th century science fiction, known for popularizing the term android [Andreid]. It is particularly criticized for its misogyny.

Publisher De Brunhoff, Paris, 1886
via Daniela Cascella

wikipedia (incl. plot, in English)
review (Boyd Petersen, The New York Review of Science Fiction)
commentary (Verena Kuni, MediaArtNet)
commentary (T. Ross Leasure, Latch)

PDF (1886 edition, multiple formats, Gutenberg.org)
PDF (1909 edition, multiple formats, Archive.org)