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The Origins of Science Fiction
The Origins of Science Fiction

The Origins of Science Fiction

Author: 
Michael Newton
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  • 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.

Index: 

Introduction
Note on the Texts
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of the Origins of Science Fiction

THE ORIGINS OF SCIENCE FICTION

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 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
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
 

About the author: 

Michael Newton Leiden University, Lecturer

Michael Newton is the author of 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 (2002). He teaches literature and film at Leiden University.

"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." - Pennsylvania Literary Journal

Product details

ISBN : 9780198891949

Author: 
Michael Newton
Pages
464 Pages
Format
Paperback
Size
196 x 129 mm
Pub date
Sep 2023
Series
Oxford World's Classics
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The Origins of Science Fiction

The Origins of Science Fiction

The Origins of Science Fiction