Henri Martin (1810-1883), a part of the coterie surrounding Honor? de Balzac, though largely forgotten today, deserves credit for writing "Isuren," the first significant French contribution to what eventually became a subgenre of "prehistoric fantasy," extensively developed in the belle ?poque, when the censorious privileges of the Church had finally evaporated, by such neo-Romantic writers as J. H. Rosny and Edmond Haraucourt. "Isuren,"...