Science fiction as we think of it today is generally dated from the composition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley in 1818. Her novel as well as works by Nathanial Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe emerged from the gothic strain of the Romantic as embodied by Shelley, Hawthorne, and Poe.

By the end of the 19th century, the field began to take on its modern shape with the publication of the first of the scientific romances of H. G. Wells.

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) was just 18 when she wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818) as her entry in a competition to tell ghost stories.

Frankenstein is generally recognized as the first true science fiction novel at least in part because the monster is a product of a scientific experiment gone bad. The novel combines social criticism with new scientific ideas.

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49), a gothic writer, is considered the father of both the short story and the detective story.

His best stories are horror or detective fiction. However, he did contribute to the genre:

• "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" deals with the quasi- scientific theory of mesmerism
• The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym (1836)--is a novel about a sea voyage into the unknown with science fiction trappings

Nathanial Hawthorne (1804-64) was a writer of gothic fantasy and also a master of the short story.

Both "The Birthmark" (1843) and "Rappaccini's Daughter" (1844) contain elements of scientific experiments; however, Hawthorne was always more concerned with guilt and innocence than with science.

Jules Verne (1828-1905), a Frenchman, was influenced by Poe in his use of scientific details and his choice of the outsider as hero. His novels are full of scientific gadgetry.

He did not invent science fiction but was the first to succeed at it commercially with novels such as:

• Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)

Edward Bellamy (1850-98) wrote Looking Backward (1888), about a man who wakes up in the year 2000 in the Boston of the future.

In this work Bellamy predicts future technological developments without grasping their possible social repercussions.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) spanned the great gulf between the mid Victorian period when he was born (in the year dynamite was invented) and the atomic age which he predicted and lived to see.

He wrote what he called "scientific romances."

Wells can be said to have invented most categories of science fiction:

• time travel--The Time Machine (1895)
• interplanetary travel--The First Men in the Moon (1901)
• alien invasion--The War of the Worlds (1897)
• future war--The World Set Free (1914)
• sinister biological experiments--The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896); The Invisible Man (1897)

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), author of some 70 books, was one of the commercially successful authors of the early 20th century.

He wrote what would today be called science fantasy.

Though probably best known today as the author of Tarzan of the Apes (1912), A Princess of Mars (1912), his first published story, introduced Barsoom (Mars) and brought interplanetary adventure into science fiction to stay.

Brian Aldiss describes Burroughs and Wells as representing the two opposing poles of modern fantasy:

• Wells teaches us to think--he stands at the thinking pole.
• Burroughs teaches us to wonder--he stands at the dreaming pole.
• Mary Shelley stands at the equator between them.

According to Aldiss, at the thinking pole stand great figures.