The Coming Race - Hardcover

Edward Bulwer-Lytton; David Seed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0819567493 ISBN 13: 9780819567499

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Climbing through the recesses of a mine, an English man falls into a deep chasm and finds himself suddenly trapped in a subterranean world inhabited by an ancient race of advanced beings. From Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth to Chris Marker's La Jetée, subterranean worlds have been a source of both fascination and fear for the literary imagination and The Coming Race is no exception. An evolutionary fantasy first published in 1871, the story draws upon ideas of Darwinism to describe a near future world characterized by female dominance, physical perfection, and vast technological progress. The novel was extremely popular in its time and is now considered a seminal science fiction text by contemporary scholars. This Wesleyan edition includes scholarly notes and an introduction that places the work in an intellectual and literary context, and describes the author's interest in the occult.

About this title

Review:

"The Coming Race is arguably one of the most important science fiction novels in the English language. Impressive in its breadth, this edition represents a very valuable teaching aid in both undergraduate and graduate courses on fantasy and science fiction." -- Nicholas Ruddick, author of Ultimate Island: On the Nature of British Science Fiction "Seed offers a comprehensive and useful critical edition of Bulwer-Lytton's early science fiction novel ... [that] illuminates the meaning and importance of this work to both writers who were Bulwer-Lytton's contemporaries and to science fiction and fantasy writers who followed him. Summing up: Highly recommended."--P.J. Kurtz, Choice "First published in 1871, The Coming Race represents a curious hybrid. Its premise is unflinchingly futuristic: the inevitable displacement of today's humanity by a more evolved 'race.' But the story unfolds in perhaps the last unexplored place on earth--the 'hollow' interior of the planet..."--Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover:

The Coming Race is the crowning achievement of the genre of hollow earth fiction, in which a hero makes a perilous journey underground and discovers a superior race. The customs and political systems of these "aliens from inner space" are researched and contrasted with the deficient practices of old-fashioned, muddling, imperfect humanity. The subterranean race in this novel, the Vril-ya, are seemingly angelic creatures whose amazing powers come from their harnessing of a force called Vril. Bulwer's novel is unequaled for the depth of its intellectual explorations--inquiries into an astonishing range of social, political, scientific, religious, linguistic, and sexual issues that are enabled by the hollow earth plot.

The novel is accompanied and illuminated in this edition by a broad range of historical materials on evolution, electromagnetism, gender roles, and nineteenth-century science fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0819567493
• ISBN 13: 9780819567499
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280