It is Paris in the 1920s, that frothy heyday between the World Wars. Hidden among the opulent cabarets, cafes, and theaters, a mad scientist toils away in his own private hospital, illegally performing grotesque experimental head transplants and reanimations on bodies stolen from the morgue. Under the tutelage of the disembodied head of a former colleague, the madman is well on his way to presenting the first-ever human head transplant to the scientific community, thereby achieving professional glory and securing his legacy as the greatest scientific mind of his generation. However, when one of his test subjects escapes, he risks being exposed to the authorities as a deranged criminal, before he has a chance to prove that he is exceptional and above the law. Can he find her before she alerts the police? Can he replicate the experiment before his illegal laboratory of living heads is discovered? Will his staff remain loyal as the pressure to save themselves builds? For nearly a century, the answers to these questions have captured the imaginations of countless readers in author Alexander Belyaev’s native Russia, where this bestselling novel has sold millions of copies, has been adapted into film, and has influenced a generation of science-fiction writers. This captivating story is now brought to readers of English in this smart new translation of Professor Dowell’s Head from writer Carl Engel. Alexander Belyaev (1884-1942), known in his native country as the Russian Jules Verne, stands as one of the giants of horror and science-fiction literature of the early Soviet era. He is the author of seventeen novels, of which Professor Dowell’s Head is both his first and most famous, and scores of short stories.

Carl Engel (b. 1985) received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 2008, and his juris doctor from Temple University School of Law in 2013, and has practiced law ever since. During that time, he has emerged as one of the rising literary translators of his generation, having published a translation of Professor Dowell’s Head (USSR, 1925) in November 2021, and with a translation of the novel Macunaima (Brazil, 1928) scheduled for publication in the spring of 2022. He lives in Philadelphia, where he continues to practice law and to translate literature.