Publishing and the Science Fiction Canon: The Case of Scientific Romance (Elements in Publishing and Book Culture)

Science fiction was being written throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it underwent a rapid expansion of cultural dissemination and popularity at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. This Element explores the ways this explosion in interest in 'scientific romance', that informs today's global science fiction culture, manifests the specific historical exigences of the revolutions in publishing and distribution technology. H. G. Wells, Jules Verne and other science fiction writers embody in their art the advances in material culture that mobilize, reproduce and distribute with new rapidity, determining the cultural logic of twentieth-century science fiction in the process. Introduction -- Notes On The Concept Of A Canon -- Scientific Romance -- The Nineteenth-century Book Market -- The Conditions Of Development 1880-1910 -- The Extraordinisation Of Ordinary Voyages -- Science Fiction's Visual Cultures -- Conclusion -- References. Adam Roberts (royal Holloway, University Of London). Includes Bibliographical References (pages 77-82). Cover Title page Copyright page Publishing and the Science Fiction Canon: The Case of Scientific Romance Contents Introduction Notes on the Concept of a Canon Scientific Romance The Nineteenth-Century Book Market The Conditions of Development 1880–1910 The Extraordinisation of Ordinary Voyages Science Fiction’s Visual Cultures Conclusion References Through readings of key figures like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, this Element argues that changes in publishing and distribution were crucial to the expansion of science fiction. Suitable for anybody interested in the reasons why science fiction went from being a niche variety of fantastical adventure into the global culture it is today.