Preface ix
Foreword: The Love of Language xi
Part I: From Myth to Utopia 1
1 From Austral to Astral Voyages: Foundational Myths 3
2 The Dreamer Dreaming: Profiles in Logophilia 17
3 The Dream of the Dreamer's Rib: Female Bodies, Male Science 29
Part II: In the Course of Time (The Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century) 37
4 The Unfinished Quest: The Search for an Ideal Language in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 39
5 Science Against Fiction: The March Toward Positive Fact 53
6 Utopia in Action: The Ascent of International Auxiliary Languages 71
7 Myth at the Heart of Science: Modern Linguistic Theories as Reflected in Science Fiction 89
Part III: Two Poles of Linguistic Fantasy 109
8 The Emperor's New Clothes: The Case of Nikolai Marr 111
9 The Queen of the Night: Language and the Unconscious--Spiritualist and Religious Glossolalia 131
Part IV: The Defense and Illustration of Natural Languages 165
10 Sleeping Beauty at Rest: Artificial Languages, Prisons of the Mind 167
11 Opposing Forces 177
Appendix 1: Synoptic Table 183
Appendix 2: Selected Texts 187
Notes 283
Bibliography 307

"Trade book on the history of imaginary languages by a French linguist who was one of the first to write on the topic and to popularize linguistics for a general and literary audience"--

Marina Yaguello; translated by Erik Butler