Mary Shelley (1797-1851) was just 19 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.

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)

Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll (1832-98) was the pen name of the Victorian mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. His most famous works:

• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
• Through the Looking Glass (1871)

are not science fiction, but in their surrealism relate to several aspects of science fiction.

Alice, like Gulliver, demonstrates C. S. Lewis' dictum: "To tell how odd things strike odd people is to have an oddity too many."

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.