• A delightful anthology of early science fiction from the close of the Romantic period to the early twentieth century, showing the extraordinary imaginative diversity of the genre
• Includes historically informed notes and biographies of the authors, a chronology of Victorian fairy tales, and an appendix in which some of the included authors discuss the nature of fairy tale and its importance
• Uses copy-text of the first published version in Britain or America of the stories in book form, or of first publication in a magazine or journal

      
'I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far beyond my vision...'
    
This anthology gathers together seventeen gripping tales from the nineteenth and early twentieth century that make up the foundations of science fiction. It moves from Mary Shelley to H. G. Wells, from Edgar Allan Poe to W. E. B. Du Bois, and from George Eliot to Jack London. Before the term 'science fiction' was established, writers pursued a new and strange subject matter, to be written about in a startlingly new way. The selected stories in this collection reflect the many diverse paths that led towards science fiction, including scientific Gothic, dystopian fantasies, psychological hoaxes, feminist parables, fictions of time-travel, adventure stories, uncanny tales, and stories of alien encounters. The anthology unveils the power of the literature of the period and exposes our fascination with scientific discovery and the allure (and threat) of the imagined future.
   
This edition includes an introduction by Michael Newton setting out the themes of the tales and exploring the development of science fiction. Newton explores how the stories engage with anxiety about the limits of the rational mind, the fact of Empire and the discoveries of anthropology, the uneasy figure of the scientist, the rapid development of technology, and the presence of the alien other.