fiction Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

The Anarchists’ Noël: Christmas Tales from “Le Libertaire” (1899-1913)

December 26, 2025 Shawn P. Wilbur

Links: The Anarchists’ Noël (pdf) ‘Christmas’ [category feed] Posting anarchist Christmas stories has become something of a tradition here in recent years, with some of the best coming from the individualist press, such as the various pieces by E. Armand and Gigi Damiani’s “Jesus and Bonnot: A Christmas Tale.” So I had been intending right along to steal a bit of time before the holiday rolled around to seek out a few new tales to translate. And then a mix of other tasks — work on the “Encounters with Anarchist Individualism,” native seed stratification, etc. — just completely wiped it […]

“Recollections of Six Days’ Journey in the Moon,” by an Aerio-Nautical Man (1844)

January 29, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

Being a devoted lover of travelling, partly on account of the agreeable dissipation of mind it produces, but more especially the dignity and consequence derived from breathing the air of foreign lands, I have been seriously aggrieved at this lamentable exhaustion of novelty, and more than once, like Alexander, sat down and wept that there were no more worlds to explore. The planets and other heavenly bodies most especially attracted my attention, and of these the Moon, which is at the bottom of so many sublunary influences, and without whose aid the adepts of Natural Philosophy would be so often at a loss to account for various phenomena, appeared to me the most interesting.

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Pierre Madel, “L’en dehors” (1930-1931)

May 19, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur

Notre feuilleton: L’en dehors À Marius Berger. Le « Maurice-Eugène » était signalé depuis la veille, en partance de Nouméa. À huit heures du matin, Georges Oxford avait braqué vingt fois sa longue-vue sur la passe. Bernard, sorti dès l’ouverture des ateliers, n’était pas même venu aux informations. Ti-Nam et Roï, les deux chinoises, achevaient en silence de ranger le salon. M. Georges remarqua un siège mal placé, ne dit rien, et, rectifia lui-même l’alignement. Puis il retourna sur la vérandah qui longeait le bungalow, face à la mer, et prit le « Bulletin du Commerce » qui traînait sur un guéridon de bambou. Sa […]

Gigi Damiani, “Jesus and Bonnot: A Christmas Tale” (FR/EN) (1927)

November 9, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

The gray car is stopped alongside a ditch, at the edge of the woods (which of its nerves has tensed? — which of its arteries has clogged, refusing the vital rush to its heart?) and under the car a young man crawls, thrashes, swears. On the road, his footsteps silent on the carpet of yellowed leaves (for we are in autumn, the sad autumn of all things!) He approaches. He is a blond vagabond, his long hair unkempt, his beard parted at the chin.

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Ixigrec, “Panurge au Pays des Machines” (1940)

September 5, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

IXIGREC Panurge au Pays des Machines COMMENT ESTOIENT REIGLEZ LES THELEMITES A LEUR MANIERE DE VIVRE Toute leur vie estoit employée non par loix, ou règles, mais selon leur vouloir et franc arbitre ; se levoient du lict quand bon leur sembloit, buvoient, mangeoient travalloient, dormoient quand le désir leur venoit. Nul ne les esveilloit, nul ne les perforceoit ny à boire, ny à manger, ny à faire chose autre quelconque. Ainsi l’avoit estably Gargantua. En leur reigle n’estoit que cette clause : FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS RABELAIS – la vie trèshorrifique du grand Gargantua IXIGREC Panurge in the Country of […]

Fragments from “The Distributive Passions”

June 28, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] The Distributive Passions is a fiction project that I’ve worked on from time to time, mostly as a way to explore problems in my study of anarchist history and theory in a novel context. These are simply fragments from the notebooks, which give some idea of the world in which the episodes are set. From “The Distributive Passions” (more fragments) [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Gabriel Solly leads a quiet life in the tiny community of New Earth, Oregon Territories (Universal Code Union, Owenite-Orthodox), laboring in the Archives of the New Earth Institute, marking time […]

William Bailie, “A Mighty Consultation and a Multitude of Diagnoses” (1892)

December 22, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] A Mighty Consultation and a Multitude of Diagnoses. REPORTED BY A JUNIOR STUDENT. The patient lay on the operating table in the theatre of the greatest surgical hospital on earth. The Faculty of every known school, seminary, college. and system of medical science was represented on that floor. Leeches in embryo filled the vast galleries, in a remote corner of which sat your humble servant, alongside his friend Publius, a retired physician of wide experience and renown. So vast was his knowledge that not one amid that wise array but Publius […]

Juan Francisco Moncaleano, “Historia del Primer Anarquista” (1913) (ES/EN)

November 1, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Historia del Primer Anarquista La noche era negra, el viento azotaba furiosamente las puertas y ventanas de los soberbios palacios, las nubes vomitaban agua las explosiones del cielo en tempestad, alumbraban mi camino, las últimas tabernas cerraban su hediondas bocas, y los pordioseros buscaban un refugio seguro contra las inclemencias de la noche. Anheloso de llegar á mi casa apuraba el paso, cuando de un obscuro callejón salio un hombre á mi encuentro,—Salud camarada—dijo acercándose á mi. Salud, le respondí, un tanto inquieto por este inesperado encuentro. Dos explosiones del cielo alumbraron detalladamente al personaje, […]

Pierre Quiroule, “Sobre la Ruta de la Anarquía” (1912)

October 30, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Sobre la ruta de la anarquía, Buenos Aires, Fueyo, 1912 Pierre Quiroule, “Sobre la Ruta de la Anarquía,” Regeneración no. 99 (July 20, 1912): 3; no. 100 (July 27, 1912): 3; no. 101 (August 3, 1912): 3; no. 102 (August 10, 1912): 3; no. 103 (August 17, 1912): 3; no. 104 (August 24, 1912): 3; no. 113 (October 26, 1912): 3; no. 121 (December 21, 1912): 3, 4; no. 129 (February 22, 1913): 3; no. 130 (March 1, 1912): 3; no. 130 (March 13, 1912): 3. The text here is taken from the serialization in Regeneración. The copies available online had minor defects that […]

The Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel (1770)

September 7, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

The melancholy Occasion of his Travels, His Shipwreck with one Companion on a desolate Island. Their way of Life. His accidental discovery of a Woman for his Companion. Their peopling the Island and also a Description of a most surprising Eagle, invented by his Son Jacob, on which he flew to the Moon, with some Account of its Inhabitants. His return, and accidental Fall into the Habitation of a Sea Monster, with whom he lived two Years. His further Excursions in Search of England. His Residence in Lapland, and Travels to Norway, from whence he arrived at Aldborough, and farther Transactions till his Death, in 1711. Aged 97.

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