Washington Irving

Science Fiction of Antebellum America Washington Irving

Science fiction and the United States of America were created together. The same Enlightenment ideals that gave rise to the United States also gave birth to science fiction, and the genre developed along with the country. Pioneering authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fitz-James O'Brien, and Washington Irving experimented with this new kind of story to capture the fears and ambitions of a new country, a new frontier, and a new era in human history. This companion volume to "Science Fiction of America's Gilded Age" collects the earliest satires, hoaxes, macabre tales, lost world fantasies and fairy tales that established the genre of science fiction in the heady days between the American Revolution and the American Civil War. "Science Fiction of Antebellum America" also includes a new introduction by editor C. W. Gross, creator and writer of "Voyages Extraordinaires: Scientific Romances in a Bygone Age," (http: //voyagesextraordinaires.blogspot.com/) the preeminent weblog dedicated to Victorian-Edwardian science fiction, horror, fantasy, history, and retro-futurism.