Search Worlds Without End

This selection of short stories offers a return journey through the future as it used to be. Time speeds backwards to the 1870s - to the alpha point of modern futuristic fiction - the opening years of that enchanted period before the First World War when Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and many able writers delighted readers from Sydney to Seattle with their most original revelations of things-to-come. In all their anticipations, the dominant factor was the recognition that the new industrial societies would continue to evolve in obedience to the rate of change. One major event that caused all to think furiously about the future was the Franco-German War of 1870. The new weapons and the new methods of army organization had shown that the conduct of warfare was changing; and, in response to that perception of change, a new form of fiction took on the task of describing the conduct of the war-to-come.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: The Paper Warriors and Their Fights of Fantasy - (1995) - essay by I. F. Clarke
• 27 - The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer - (1871) - novella by George Tomkyns Chesney
• 74 - The Battle of Dorking - (1871) - poem by Anonymous
• 77 - Der Ruhm, or, The Wreck of German Unity. The Narrative of a Brandenburger Hauptmann - (1871) - shortstory by Anonymous
• 95 - War in the Twentieth Century - [Le vingtième siècle / The Twentieth Century - 2] - (1995) - shortstory by Albert Robida (trans. of La Guerre au vingtième siècle 1887)
• 113 - The Taking of Dover (excerpt) - (1888) - shortfiction by Horace Francis Lester
• 139 - In a Conning Tower: How I Took HMS Majestic Into Action - (1888) - novelette by Hugh Oakley Arnold-Foster
• 162 - The Stricken Nation (excerpt) - (1890) - shortfiction by Hugh Grattan Donnelly
• 193 - The Raid of Le Vengeur - (1901) - shortstory by George Griffith
• 210 - The Green Curve - (1909) - novelette by Ole-Luk-Oie [as by Ernest Swinton ]
• 234 - The Trenches - (1908) - shortstory by C. E. Vickers
• 251 - The Secret of the Army Aeroplane - (1909) - shortstory by A. A. Milne
• 257 - The Unparalleled Invasion - (1910) - shortstory by Jack London
• 271 - A Vision of the Future - (1912) - shortstory by Gustaf Janson
• 281 - Planes! - (1913) - shortstory by F. Britten Austin [as by Frederick Britten Austin ]
• 293 - Danger!: Being the Log of Captain John Sirius - (1914) - novelette by Arthur Conan Doyle (variant of Danger!)
• 321 - Frankreichs Ende im Jahr 19?? (excerpt) - (1995) - novelette by Adolf Sommerfeld

In the second of a series of anthologies on future war stories, the leading specialist in the field presents a selection of prophetic tales about the conflict-to-come between the British and the Germans, tales which had immense influence in the quarter-century before the First World War. An extensive range of contemporary illustrations is included.

Contents:

• 1 - 'Horribly Stuffed with Epithets of War' - essay by I. F. Clarke
• 29 - The Great War of 198- (excerpt) - (1893) - shortfiction by Colonel J. F. Maurice, R. A. and Rear-Admiral P. Colomb and Captain F. N. Maude and Archibald Forbes and Charles Lowe and D. Christie Murray and F. Scudamore
• 72 - The Final War (excerpt) - (1896) - shortfiction by Louis Tracy
• 80 - The Spies of the Wight (excerpt) - (1899) - shortfiction by Headon Hill
• 87 - Die Abrechnung mit England (excerpt) - (1900) - shortfiction by Karl Eisenhart
• 102 - The Invaders (excerpt) - (1901) - shortfiction by Louis Tracy
• 108 - The Enemy in Our Midst (excerpt) - (1903) - shortfiction by Walter Wood
• 116 - The Riddle of the Sands (excerpt) - (1903) - shortfiction by Erskine Childers
• 129 - A New Trafalgar (excerpt) - (1902) - shortfiction by A. C. Curtis
• 139 - The Invasion of 1910 (excerpt) - (1906) - shortfiction by William Le Queux
• 152 - When the Eagle Flies Seaward (excerpt) - (1907) - shortfiction by Patrick Vaux and Lionel Yexley
• 167 - The Death Trap (excerpt) - (1907) - shortfiction by Robert W. Cole (variant of The Death Trap (Extract)) [as by Robert William Cole ]
• 178 - The Child's Guide to Knowledge - (1909) - shortstory by Anonymous
• 183 - The Coming Conquest of England (excerpt) - (1906) - shortfiction by August Niemann
• 201 - Armageddon 190- (excerpt) - (1907) - shortfiction by Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff [as by Seestern ]
• 225 - Die 'Offensiv-Invasion' gegen England (excerpt) - (1907) - shortfiction by Karl Bliebtreu
• 233 - Berlin-Bagdad: Das Deutsche Weltreich im Zeitalter der Luftschifffahrt, 1910-1931 (excerpt) - (1907) - shortfiction by Rudolf Martin
• 249 - The Real Le Queux (excerpt) - (1938) - shortfiction by N. St. Barbe Sladen
• 256 - Before the Lights Went Out (excerpt) - (1945) - shortfiction by Esmé Wingfield-Stratford
• 256 - Bouquets for Fleet Street (excerpt) - (1951) - shortfiction by Bernard Falk
• 258 - About German Spies - (1910) - essay by Charles Lowe
• 276 - The Essence of Parliament - (1908) - shortstory by Anonymous
• 278 - Les Fictions guerrières anglaises - (1910) - essay by Louis C.
• 281 - Incidents of the Coming Invasion of England (cartoon) - (1910) - interior artwork by W. Heath Robinson
• 293 - Die Invasion Englands in englischer Belechtung - (1908) - essay by Anonymous
• 296 - Vademecum für Phantasiestrategen - (1908) - essay by Carl Siwinna
• 313 - The Swoop! or, How Clarence Saved England (excerpt) - (1909) - shortfiction by P. G. Wodehouse
• 326 - The Boy Galloper (excerpt) - (1903) - shortfiction by L. James
• 339 - The Message (excerpt) - (1907) - shortfiction by A. J. Dawson
• 356 - When England Slept - (1909) - shortstory by Capt. H. Curties
• 363 - The North Sea Bubble - (1906) - shortstory by Ernest Oldmeadow
• 368 - When William Came (excerpt) - (1913) - shortfiction by Saki
• 377 - The Cliffs - (1909) - poem by Charles Doughty
• 381 - The Battle of the North Sea (excerpt) - (1912) - shortfiction by Rear Admiral Eardley-Wilmot
• 385 - 'Sink, Burn, Destroy': Der Schlag gegen Deutschland (excerpt) - (1905) - shortfiction by Anonymous
• 390 - The Germans in Hampton Court (excerpt) - (1904) - shortfiction by August Niemann
• 398 - 100 Jahre deutsche Zukunft (excerpt) - (1913) - shortfiction by Max Heinrichka
• 408 - Hindenburgs Einmarsch in London (excerpt) - (1915) - shortfiction by Paul Georg Münch
• 413 - America Fallen (excerpt) - (1915) - shortfiction by J. Bernard Walker
• 413 - Epilogue: Meanwhile, Across the Atlantic - essay by I. F. Clarke
• 413 - Introduction (America Fallen by J. Bernard Walker) - (1915) - essay by George Haven Putnam
• 422 - Notes (The Great War with Germany, 1890-1914) - essay by I. F. Clarke

It's the year 3000, and children are raised by steam machines, Switzerland has been converted into a theme park, and there are no fewer than 684 kinds of mental illness. With eccentric, dark humor, Émile Souvestre portrays a society dominated by mechanization and greed. However comically exaggerated, the unmistakable echoes of real problems and possibilities in Souvestre's satire make this book science fiction's earliest warning against the dangers of mechanization in a society ruled by consumerism.

The World as It Shall Be was originally published in France in 1846--the first fully illustrated story in the history of future fiction. The satiric novel, with 87 charming illustrations, unfolds through the eyes of Maurice and Marthe, a young couple who are brought to the year 3000 by the spirit of the age, M. John Progrès. This first English translation includes all of the original art.

Originally published in French in 1805, The Last Man is a powerful story of the demise of the human race. Drawing on the traditional account in Revelations, The Last Man was the first end-of-the-world story in future fiction. As the first secular apocalypse story, The Last Man served as the departure point for many other speculative fictions of this type throughout the 19th century, including works by Shelley, Flammarion and Wells.

Grainville's masterful imagination is evident in the vast scale of the action as Omegarus, the Last Adam, and Syderia, the Last Eve, are led toward the moment when "the light of the sun and the stars is extinguished."

This is essential reading for anyone interested in the roots of apocalyptic science fiction.