Les Mains d'Orlac

Les Mains d'Orlac
First edition: Nilsson, Paris 1920
AuthorMaurice Renard
LanguageFrench
GenreScience fiction
Set inFrance
Published1920 (Serialized Publication)
PublisherL'Intransigeant
Publication date
May 15—July 12, 1920 (L'Intransigeant)
Publication placeFrance
Published in English
1929
Pages248

Les Mains d'Orlac (English: The Hands of Orlac) is a French science fiction novel written by Maurice Renard. The plot involves a celebrated pianist who loses his hands in a track crash and has them surgically replaced with those of an executed murderer. Soon, the transplanted hands assume the personality of its psychopathic donor.[1]

Renard's novel was one of his many science fiction stories he wrote in the early 20th century and was initially published in 58 episodes in L'Intransigeant from May 15, to July 12, 1920. It is among Renard's most popular and most translated novels, and has frequently been translated into films, with the two most popular adaptations being The Hands of Orlac (1924) and Mad Love (1935).

  1. ^ Evans 1994, p. 385.