Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès
| Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès | |
|---|---|
| Born |
24 June 1767 Marseille |
| Died | 13 June 1846 (aged 78) Graville, Le Havre |
| Resting place | Graville priory |
| Occupation | Geographer, translator |
| Language | French |
| Nationality | French |
| Alma mater | College of Juilly |
| Period | 1807–1847 |
| Genre | Academic, Gothic |
| Subject | Travel, geography |
| Notable works | Fantasmagoriana |
| Notable awards |
Legion of Honour 1844 |
Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès (French: [ʒɑ̃ ba.tist bə.nwa ɛː.rjɛs]; 24 June 1767 – 13 June 1846) was a French geographer, author and translator, best remembered in the English speaking world for his translation of German ghost stories Fantasmagoriana, published anonymously in 1812, which inspired Mary Shelley and John William Polidori to write Frankenstein and The Vampyre respectively. He was one of the founding members of the Société de Géographie, a member of the Société Asiatique, admitted to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, awarded the Legion of Honour, elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1841, and has a street named after him in Le Havre and a mountain near Humboldt Bay.
Born in Marseille on 24 June 1767, the son of Jacques-Joseph Eyriès, a "lieutenant de frégates du roi" ("lieutenant of the king's frigates"), and Jeanne-Françoise Deluy (1748–1826). He moved to Le Havre in 1772 when his father was promoted to "commandant de la Marine" ("commander of the Navy"), and went to study at the College of Juilly. Eyriès began to travel to England, Germany, Sweden and Denmark to learn their languages and study botany and mineralogy, and through it grew to love geography and travel. Returning to Le Havre, he began working in the armaments trade, including commercial expeditions to various parts of the world, while taking care of a natural history museum there. In 1794 he went to Paris to deliver his father, who had been detained as a suspect in the new Republic, moving there the following year to devote himself to his studies, where he attended lectures by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu and Georges Cuvier, and started collecting old travel books.
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