RADIUM AGE 3Q2025
By:
September 22, 2025
Under the direction of HILOBROW’s Josh Glenn, in 2022 the MIT Press launched its RADIUM AGE series of proto-sf reissues from 1900–1935.
In these forgotten classics, sf readers will discover the origins of enduring tropes like robots (berserk or benevolent), tyrannical supermen, dystopias and apocalypses, sinister telepaths, and eco-catastrophes. With new contributions by historians, science journalists, and sf authors, the RADIUM AGE book series recontextualizes the breakthroughs and biases of these proto-sf pioneers, and charts the emergence of a burgeoning literary genre.
RADIUM AGE SERIES UPDATES: 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 1Q2025 | 2Q2025 | 3Q2025 | 4Q2025. FULL SERIES INFO.
Below, please find updates on the RADIUM AGE project from 3Q2025.
During 3Q2025, the RADIUM AGE series published the following titles.
SUPERHUMANS OF THE RADIUM AGE
Edited & Introduced by JOSHUA GLENN
(August 19, 2025)
Introducing the weird and wonderful ancestors of today’s comic-book and cinematic superheroes….
Science-fictional narratives about superhumans — humans who’ve evolved into creatures stronger, smarter, and more gifted than we have any reason to be — first showed up during the genre’s emergent Radium Age. Originally published between 1902 and 1928, the stories and excerpts anthologized by Joshua Glenn feature the likes of Thomas Dunbar, one of the first lab-created superhumans — dreamed up by a teenaged Gertrude Barrows, later well-known to sf fans as “Francis Stevens.” Thanks to George Bernard Shaw and H. Rider Haggard, meanwhile, we’ll make the acquaintance of Zoo and Yva — superwomen who contemplate the extermination of us mere mortals. Alfred Jarry’s André Marcueil, a scientist who develops a super-sexual capacity, is punished for this transgression; and Marie Corelli’s Young Diana, having been rendered super-alluring via a rejuvenation experiment, seeks revenge on a sexist society.
Hugo Gernsback gives us Ralph 124C 41+, a benevolent super-genius inventor who dwells atop a New York skyscraper. But M.P. Shiel tells the story of Hannibal Lepsius, a homeschooled prodigy turned amoral tech-bro; and Karel Čapek gives us Rudy Marek, an inventor who, having developed wonder-working powers, wonders whether civilization will survive his latest invention. Thea von Harbou’s genius scientist, Rotwang, is even less conscientious in his scheming; as is Arthur Conan Doyle’s ever-irascible Professor Challenger, here in one of his final outings. Finally, Jean de La Hire’s Nyctalope, a popular French super-powered crimefighter character, makes an appearance; and so does Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan of the Apes… though reduced to miniature size.
Radium Age superhumans… assemble!
“The tales collected here by Joshua Glenn offer a rich origin story for the ‘superhuman,’ a sci-fi trope that would go on to launch a million comic books… and which, in our era of the more-than-human AI, is a prescient one.” — Ann Nocenti, Marvel and DC comic book writer
“What are the modern-day equivalent to the heroes of myth and legend? For some, the answer is superheroes.” — from Reactor’s list of Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for July and August 2025.
“Examining the ways that humanity could be transformed in all sorts of terrifying ways. I’m looking forward to digging into this one.” — Transfer Orbit
“Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in pop culture.” — Toronto Star
JOSHUA GLENN is a consulting semiotician and editor of the websites HiLobrow and Semiovox. The first to describe 1900–1935 as science fiction’s “Radium Age,” he is editor of the MIT Press’s series of reissued proto-sf stories from that period. He is coauthor and co-editor of various books including, most recently, Lost Objects (2022).
EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS is best known for his stories featuring Tarzan of the Apes, one of fiction’s all-time most successful characters. He was also a prolific proto-sf author whose popular Barsoom series, beginning with A Princess of Mars (1912/1917), would prove influential on science fiction’s planetary romance subgenre.
KAREL ČAPEK (1890–1938) was a Czech litterateur and anti-totalitarian absurdist who achieved his most memorable effects when working in a science-fictional mode. He is best known for his 1921 proto-sf play, R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots, and his novels The Absolute at Large (1922), Krakatit (1924), and War with the Newts (1936).
MARIE CORELLI (Mary Mackay, 1855–1924) wrote popular bestsellers, many of which featured sf elements (interstellar travel, advanced technology), and all of which aimed to reconcile Christian teachings with Western esotericism. In addition to The Young Diana (1918), her Radium Age proto-sf writing includes the novel The Secret Power (1921).
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859–1930) was a Scottish physician and author who in 1887 introduced Sherlock Holmes, arguably the best-known fictional detective. Doyle’s proto-sf series of Professor Challenger adventures include The Lost World (1912) and The Poison Belt (1913); both have been reissued in a single volume by The MIT Press.
HUGO GERNSBACK (1884–1967) was an American editor and magazine publisher. Amog his publications—which gave E.E. “Doc” Smith, Fletcher Pratt, Edmond Hamilton, Jack Williamson, and others their start—was the pioneering sf magazine, Amazing Stories, as well as Wonder Stories. It was Gernsback who popularized the term “science fiction.”
H. RIDER HAGGARD (1856–1925) was an English author known for adventure fiction and science-fantasy romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa. Considered a pioneer of the Lost World subgenre, he is best remembered for King Solomon’s Mines (1885), She (1886–1887), and these novels’ various sequels, prequels, and crossovers.
THEA VON HARBOU (1888–1954) was a German writer best known for the screenplays she developed with director Fritz Lang. Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Harbou’s 1925 novelization were written simultaneously; she also collaborated with Lang on the proto-sf films The Girl in the Moon (1929) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933).
ALFRED JARRY (1873–1907) was a French absurdist writer and philosopher best known for the play Ubu roi (1896) and its sequels, and for his development of the mock-science of ’pataphysics, which he’d adumbrate entertainingly via Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien (1911). His most science-fictional work is Le surmâle (1901).
JEAN DE LA HIRE (Adolphe d’Espie, 1878–1956) was a prolific French author of popular fiction. His works of proto-sf interest include La Roue Fulgurante (1908) and L’Europe future (1916). He is best known for the proto-superhero Nyctalope sequence, seventeen stories in all—from Le Mystère des XV (1911) to L’Énigme du Squelette (1955).
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856–1950) was an Irish-born playwright, critic, and political activist who espoused utopian socialism and “creative evolution” (via eugenics). In addition to his proto-sf play Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch (1921), his works of sf interest include Man and Superman (1903) and Buoyant Billions (1948).
M.P. SHIEL (1865–1947) was a Montserrat-born British writer whose proto-sf works include The Purple Cloud (1901), The Lord of the Sea (1901), The Last Miracle (1906), The Isle of Lies (1909), and The Young Men Are Coming! (1937). He has received attention as a writer of partial Black ancestry, and as a novelist of Caribbean origin.
FRANCIS STEVENS (Gertrude Barrows Bennett, 1884–1948) was the first American woman to publish widely in fantasy and science fiction; she was an important influence on A. Merritt and others. Her proto-sf novel The Heads of Cerberus (1919) and several proto-sf stories were reissued by The MIT Press in a collection edited by Lisa Yaszek.
Originally published 1902–1928. Cover illustrated and designed by Seth. See this book at The MIT Press.
MARIETTA S. SHAGINYAN
Translated & Introduced by JILL ROESE
(August 19, 2025)
When a capitalist cabal plots to assassinate Lenin, can quick-witted American workers ride to the rescue before it’s too late?
In Yankees in Petrograd, the Russian author Marietta S. Shaginyan (writing under the American nom de plume “Jim Dollar”) gives us a crime/espionage adventure with science fiction elements… including Petrograd’s spacetime-bending public transportation and electrical forcefields protecting Soviet Russia against its foes. Despite these awesome technologies, the world’s first proletarian state is threatened by a fascist organization that will stop at nothing — including kidnapping, mesmerism, and infiltration — to assassinate Vladimir Lenin and his fellow Communist leaders! Enter Mike Thingsmaster, American tradesman and leader of a secret global organization defending the interests of the proletariat, who tasks his network with foiling this nefarious plot.
Shaginyan’s novel, serialized in 1924 with covers decorated by Alexander Rodchenko’s photomontages, proved wildly popular with the Soviet reading public, which followed its dizzying plot breathlessly. Settings constantly shift and characters assume multiple identities; scenes of danger, intrigue, and melodrama are interspersed with moments of comic relief. Can Thingsmaster and his allies — including a robber baron’s scion who converts to the cause of Revolution, an alluring masked woman, a doctor investigating a disease that causes fierce anti-communists to revert to proto-human form, a chimney sweep, an intelligent dog, and the General Prosecutor of Illinois — succeed in thwarting the fascists? You’ll have to wait until the final chapter to find out.
A satire of the sort of thrillers then appearing in Black Mask and similar American pulps, Yankees in Petrograd is an over-the-top, pro-communist thrill ride.
“A novel of our time, in which major events succeed each other with purely cinematographic speed… In Jim Dollar’s novel we see nothing but action.” — Nikolai Meshcheryakov, “Foreword to the First Edition” (1924)
“Marietta Shaginyan’s Yankees in Petrograd is a time capsule — a rollicking, mixed-genre, socialist antidote to Ayn Rand. It’s great to have it in this new edition.” — Keith Gessen
JILL ROESE is author of the Marietta S. Shaginyan entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Her translation of Shaginyan’s 1931 Soviet production novel Gidrotsentral’ (Hydrocentral) into English is in progresss. Her academic interests also include Soviet prose of the 1920s-30s. An independent scholar, she received her doctorate in Slavic Languages from Columbia in 2017.
MARIETTA S. SHAGINYAN (1888–1982) was a pre-revolutionary and Soviet-era writer whose career spanned eight decades and nearly 80 books. She enjoyed close friendships with Russian luminaries of her day, including Viktor Shklovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff. She is best known for Orientalia (1913), a collection of poetry; the proto-sf Soviet detective series collectively titled Mess—Mend, including Yankees in Petrograd (1924), published under the American-style pseudonym “Jim Dollar”; and a four-volume work (1959–1974) on the life and family of Lenin.
Originally published 1924. Cover illustrated and designed by Seth. See this book at The MIT Press.
Our Spring 2026 titles are:
- E. and H. Heron’s Flaxman Low: Occult Detective (March 10), edited and introduced by Alexander B. Joy. “Flaxman Low is the Sherlock Holmes of the ghost world.” — The London Quarterly Review (1900)
- Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth (March 31), introduced by Lucy Sante. “A gynarchic state, Armeria, where women marry each other and buy the babies on whom the future of Armeria depends… Readable and suggestive.” — The Occult Review (1909)
Here at HILOBROW, during 3Q2025 Josh continued to share his Radium Age-related research. For example…
HILOBROW published further installments in the series RADIUM AGE POETRY. Here’s a sampling of the 3Q2025 lineup:
Fenton Johnson’s TIRED | Hirato Renkichi’s MACHINE | Langston Hughes’ I, TOO | Blaise Cendrars’ SPUTTERINGS | Conrad Aiken’s MORNING SONG OF SENLIN | Countee Cullen’s TO LOVERS OF EARTH | Hart Crane’s TO BROOKLYN BRIDGE | Hirato Renkichi’s INSIGHT | Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa)’s THE TOBACCO SHOP | Farfa’s THE MECHANICAL TRIANGLE.
To see the full RADIUM AGE POETRY lineup, organized thematically, visit this page.
Here at HILOBROW, as we have been doing for a decade now, during 3Q2025 we serialized some of Josh’s favorite Radium Age proto-sf stories and novels. Here’s the lineup:
- Robert Gilbert Wells’ Anthropology Applied to the American White Man and Negro (1905, excerpt)
- W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Princess Steel” (1908–10, excerpt)
- Noëlle Roger’s The New Adam (1926, excerpt), trans. Josh Glenn
- Lillian B. Jones’ Five Generations Hence (1916, excerpt)
- Leslie F. Stone’s “The Fall of Mercury” (1935)
- Leopoldo Lugones’ “Yzur” (1906)
Here’s a sampling of 3Q2025 series publicity:
- Reactor’s list of Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for July and August 2025 includes a mention of the Before Superman anthology: “What are the modern-day equivalent to the heroes of myth and legend? For some, the answer is superheroes, and argument made by (among others) Grant Morrison in the book Supergods. Does that mean that the pulp heroes who predated those heroes are the equivalent to the Titans? (The Greek mythological ones, not the team with Robin, Raven, and Kid Flash.) Find out for yourself in the anthology Before Superman: Superhumans of the Radium Age, edited by Joshua Glenn.”
- “I’m looking forward to digging into this one,” says Andrew Liptak of Transfer Orbit, of Before Superman. “This collection pulls together short stories written between 1902 and 1928, by such authors as Francis Stevens, H. Rider Haggard, Hugo Gernsback, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and more, all examining the ways that humanity could be transformed in all sorts of terrifying ways.”
- Before Superman was listed in Locus magazine’s recommended reads for August 2025.
- Josh was interviewed by Paul Semel about Before Superman — the Q&A was posted on publication day, August 19th. Excerpt:
PAUL SEMEL: Do you think any of the stories in Before Superman could work as a comic book? Or a movie?
JOSH GLENN: These superhuman stories and others would make terrific comic books or movies. Perhaps only now is the world ready for Jarry’s André Marcueil, a Bruce Wayne-like gentleman scientist who trains his body to be superior to ordinary mortals…and who develops a super-sexual capacity.
- Before Superman was listed in io9/Gizmodo’s recommended reads for August 2025.
- A New York Times literary quiz on August 25th included a Radium Age title.
- For the August 29 episode of the Lit Hub Podcast, Josh was interviewed about the Before Superman anthology, and the Radium Age series in general, by host Drew Broussard.
- “Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in our own pop culture.” — From a Toronto Star review of Before Superman.
Emma Tourtelot, Lucy Sante, Annie Nocenti reading selections from Before Superman. Many thanks to the very talented readers (who also included Drew Broussard), audience, and Lindsey Wolkowicz for hosting the book’s launch event in the O+ Festival‘s lovely, brand-new venue in Kingston (NY). Thanks also to Rough Draft Books for organizing sales of the book.
On to 4Q2025…
MORE RADIUM AGE SCI FI ON HILOBROW: RADIUM AGE SERIES from THE MIT PRESS: In-depth info on each book in the series; a sneak peek at what’s coming in the months ahead; the secret identity of the series’ advisory panel; and more. | RADIUM AGE: TIMELINE: Notes on proto-sf publications and related events from 1900–1935. | RADIUM AGE POETRY: Proto-sf and science-related poetry from 1900–1935. | RADIUM AGE 100: A list (now somewhat outdated) of Josh’s 100 favorite proto-sf novels from the genre’s emergent Radium Age | SISTERS OF THE RADIUM AGE: A resource compiled by Lisa Yaszek.