Jules Hoche's The Maker of Men and His Formula (1906) was amongst several notable novels inspired by H. G. Wells, in this case The Island of Doctor Moreau. In it, Hoche tried to go further than Wells, featuring a much bolder project in the manufacture of human beings, with more complex results. Whereas Moreau confined himself to surgical methods, Dr. Brillat-Dessaigne starts from primordial slime, subjecting it to a process of accelerated evolution...