Le voyage dans la lune (operetta) but due to the need to raise the necessary money he did not take up the project. Eventually Albert Vizentini, the new directeur of the Gaîté, took up the idea, and Offenbach's contribution was limited to that of composer. Albert Vanloo and Eugène Leterrier, in association with Arnold Mortier (columnist at Figaro), wrote the libretto. They were hoping for a repeat of the success of the novels of Jules Verne (another, the novel "Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours", had been adapted for the stage at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin by Verne himself in 1874) and the
Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique sense of ontological uncertainty, using X-ray technology, money, or ideological fanaticism, Mirbeau suggests life’s value consists in its unprecitability. Opposing the pretentiousness of science, the deathliness of knowledge systems, Mirbeau invokes the vitality of an art of exploration and creative conjecture. The French society of the Third Republic is presented as a completely mad world in the novel, where everything is out of justice, order and reason. English translation by Justin Vicari : "21 Days of a Neurasthenic", Columbia University Press, Dalkey Archive Press, 2014. Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique Les Vingt et un Jours d'un neurasthénique is