“Vive le merveilleux-vrai!” The romanesque and scientific utopia in children’s literature in 1850: The example of Isabelle Meunier

In nineteenth-century children’s literature, the “romanesque” is not self-evident. A constant temptation for authors in search of freedom, a persistent desire on the part of young readers in search of pleasure, the romanesque certainly found in science, by way of the “merveilleux-scientifique,” a guarantee for its existence, but it was also able to spread beyond any “positive” field thanks to the pedagogical qualities that the era, eager for a politically and socially useful literature, willingly lent it.