The Origins of Science Fiction

Pennsylvania Literary Journal These are some of my initial impressions on this useful collection...It is a great mystery just what captivates readers in a story and these ghostwriters have certainly achieved the pinnacle of this craft.

MICHAEL NEWTON is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (2002) and Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865-1981 (2012). On the subject of cinema, he has written Show People: A History of the Film Star (2019) and books on Kind Hearts and Coronets (2003) and Rosemary's Baby (2020) for the BFI Film Classics series. He has edited Edmund Gosse's Father and Son and Victorian Fairy Tales for Oxford World's Classics, and Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent and The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories for Penguin Classics, and co-edited the anthology, Literature and Science, 1660-1834: Science as Polite Culture (Pickering & Chatto). He teaches literature and film at Leiden University.

Introduction Note on the Texts Select Bibliography A Chronology of the Origins of Science Fiction Mary Shelley: The Mortal Immortal Edgar Allan Poe: The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion Nathaniel Hawthorne: Rappaccini's Daughter Edgar Allan Poe: The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar Fitz-James O'Brien: The Diamond Lens George Eliot: The Lifted Veil Grant Allen: Pausodyne: A Great Chemical Discovery Frank R. Stockton: The Water-Devil. A Marine Tale H. G. Wells: The Crystal Egg Rudyard Kipling: 'Wireless' Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: The Hall Bedroom H. G. Wells: The Country of the Blind E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Terror of Blue John Gap Jack London: The Red One Gertrude Barrows Bennett: Friend Island W. E. B. Dubois: The Comet Explanatory Notes