The Coming Race

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 Jetee, 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.

Author of over 100 other works, SIR EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON was a prolific writer and remains, even today, a well-recognized figure in 19th century British literature. DAVID SEED is a prominent British scholar of early science fiction. He holds a personal chair in American Literature at the University of Liverpool and is the author of American Science Fiction and the Cold War.