Merveilleux scientifique ou merveilleux féerique à destination des enfants ? L’Île des monstres de Mme la Comtesse de Genlis

In 1810, by including ­L’Île des monstres, ­contes de fées in her Jeux Champêtres, Mme de Genlis seems to break with herself, the woman who for so long refused to offer young readers the irrational and the fantastic. This article examines this ideological and aesthetic change by analyzing this ­story’s relationship with the ­author’s earlier work and with the multifaceted traditions of the tale. Do we see the transition here from Enlightenment Europe to a romantic Europe that is undermined by the upheavals of history ?