RADIUM AGE 2Q2025
By:
June 26, 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. FULL SERIES INFO.
Below, please find updates on the RADIUM AGE project from 2Q2025.
Josh worked with the MIT Press editorial team to send the Fall 2025 titles to press. These titles are: Marietta S. Shaginyan’s Yankees in Petrograd (translated and introduced by Jill Roese); and Before Superman: Superhumans of the Radium Age (anthology edited and introduced by Josh). Publication date for both: August 19th.
Also during 2Q2025, Josh worked with the MITP team on copy edits of the Spring 2026 titles. These titles are: Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth (introduced by Lucy Sante); and E. and H. Heron’s Flaxman Low: Occult Detective (edited and introduced by Alexander B. Joy).
The series’ Spring 2027, Fall 2027, and Spring 2028 titles are also underway. These include three anthologies of proto-sf stories, two of which will be translations into English.
Here at HILOBROW, during 2Q2025 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 2Q2025 lineup:
Paul Valéry’s THE YOUNG FATE | Álvaro de Campos’ TIME’S PASSAGE | Vladimir Mayakovsky’s OUR MARCH | Kenneth Rexroth’s “FROM ANY EVENT INTERVALS…” | Amy Lowell’s “IF A SAND-STORM WOULD COME…” | Archibald MacLeish’s THE END OF THE WORLD | Wallace Stevens’ A POSTCARD FROM THE VOLCANO | Stanley G. Weinbaum’s TWO SUNSETS | Olaf Stapledon’s “IS MAN A DISEASE…”.
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 2Q2025 we serialized some of Josh’s favorite Radium Age proto-sf stories and novels. Here’s the lineup:
- Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford’s The Inheritors (1901), cont.
- Frank L. Pollock’s “The Skyscraper in B Flat” (1904), cont.
- Christopher Blayre’s “Aalila” (1921)
- George S. Schuyler’s Black No More (excerpt, 1931)
- Algernon Blackwood’s “Playing Catch” (1924)
During 2Q2025…
- On May 2, the 2025 Locus Awards top ten finalists were announced. The Radium Age series’ The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction (Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, trans. and ed.), was announced as a top ten finalist in the Anthology category. Very cool!
- Sneak peek at MIT Press catalog’s RADIUM AGE series page, Fall 2025…
- A Radium Age series title spotted at a public library in the Bronx. Photo sent in May by HILOBROW friend (and Radium Age series advisor) Kara Lynch.
- Here’s a page from Penguin Random House’s June 2025 “Panels” catalog — which is dedicated primarily to comics retail.
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.