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Vintage Visions
Essays on Early Science Fiction
Early Classics of Science Fiction
Edited Arthur B. Evans
Sales Date: 2014-06-11
Top scholars investigate the nature and variety of early science fiction
Vintage Visions is a seminal collection of scholarly essays on early works of science fiction and its antecedents. From Cyrano de Bergerac in 1657 to Olaf Stapledon in 1937, this anthology focuses on an unusually broad range of authors and works in the genre as it emerged across the globe, including the United States, Russia, Europe, and Latin America. The book includes material that will be of interest to both scholars and fans, including an extensive bibliography of criticism on early science fiction—the first of its kind—and a chronological listing of 150 key early works. Before Dr. Strangelove, future-war fiction was hugely popular in nineteenth-century Great Britain. Before Terminator, a French author depicted Thomas Edison as the creator of the perfect female android. These works and others are featured in this critical anthology.
Contributors include Paul K. Alkon, Andrea Bell, Josh Bernatchez, I. F. Clarke, William J. Fanning Jr., William B. Fischer, Allison de Fren, Susan Gubar, Rachel Haywood Ferreira, Kamila Kinyon, Stanislaw Lem, Patrick A. McCarthy, Sylvie Romanowski, Nicholas Ruddick, and Gary Westfahl.
Hardcover is un-jacketed.
Preface
Sylvie Romanowski, Cyrano de Bergerac's Epistemological Bodies: "Pregnant with a Thousand Definitions" (1998, with an afterword by Ishbel Addyman)
Paul K. Alkon, Samuel Madden's Memoirs of the Twentieth Century (1985)
William B. Fischer, German Theories of Science Fiction: Jean Paul, Kurd Lasswitz, and After (1976)
Josh Bernatchez, Monstrosity, Suffering, Subjectivity, and Sympathetic Community in Frankenstein and "The Structure of Torture" (2009)
Arthur B. Evans, Science Fiction vs. Scientific Fiction in France: From Jules Verne to J.-H. Rosny Aîné (1988)
I.F. Clarke, Future-War Fiction: The First Main Phase, 1871 – 1900 (1997, with an afterword by Margaret Clarke)
Allison de Fren, The Anatomical Gaze in Tomorrow's Eve (2009)
Andrea Bell, Desde Júpiter: Chile's Earliest Science-Fiction Novel (1995)
Rachel Haywood Ferreira, The First Wave: Latin American Science Fiction Discovers Its Roots (2007)
Nicholas Ruddick, "Tell Us All About Rosebery": Topicality and Temporality in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (2001)
Kamila Kinyon, The Phenomenology of Robots: Confrontations with Death in Karel apek's R.U.R. (1999)
Patrick A. McCarthy, Zamyatin and the Nightmare of Technology (1984)
Gary Westfahl, "The Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe Type of Story": Hugo Gernsback's History of Science Fiction (1992)
William J. Fanning, Jr., The Historical Death Ray and Science Fiction in the 1920s and 1930s (2010)
Susan Gubar, C.L. Moore and the Conventions of Women's Science Fiction (1980, with an afterword by Veronica Hollinger)
Stanislaw Lem, On Stapledon's Star Maker (1987, with an afterword by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.)
150 Key Works of Early Science Fiction
Bibliography of Criticism on Early Science Fiction
Contributors
ARTHUR B. EVANS is a renowned Jules Verne scholar, and professor of French at DePauw University. He is the general editor of Wesleyan's Early Classics of Science Fiction series, coeditor of The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, and managing editor of the journal Science Fiction Studies.
"A rich volume of essays that voyage back deep to the roots of modern science fiction, thereby illuminating contemporary productions from a foundational angle."
~Paul Di Filippo, Locus
""There can be no doubting the quality of the critical essays collected in this anthology.""
~Adam Roberts, Science Fiction Studies
""[A] compelling look back at ideas, authors, and texts that offer a snapshot of academic scholarship on early science fiction.""
~S.E. Vie, Choice
""A rich volume of essays that voyage back deep to the roots of modern science fiction, thereby illuminating contemporary productions from a foundational angle.""
~Paul Di Filippo, Locus
""[A] fascinating collection of essays and articles.""
~Ryder Miller, Portland Review of Books
"This is an important collection of classic pieces of commentary on early science fiction by recognized specialists in the field. It has an international range of topics from Europe to Latin America and explains the complex interaction between literature and both science and technology, and sheds invaluable light on the gradual emergence of science-fiction practices from the seventeenth century up to the period between the world wars. It documents in fascinating detail writers' responses to change and their different ways of embodying expectation in narrative."
~David Seed, University of Liverpool
"This book is like a long-abandoned gold mine. Even its bibliography is one of the strangest things I've ever read.""
~Bruce Sterling
"These essays do an excellent job of displaying the breadth and variety of science fiction studies as a field, both chronologically and geographically. They define and articulate the field efficiently and impressively.""
~John Rieder, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
"International in scope, Vintage Visions is a treasure house of eye-opening classic essays on science fiction's early history and prehistory. Collectively, the sixteen essayists offer richer, more varied perspectives on the evolving and experimental relationship between fiction and science than any single-author study could provide.""
~Robert Crossley, author of Imagining Mars: A Literary History
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