RADIUM AGE 3Q2026

By: HILOBROW
September 24, 2026

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 | 2025 | 1Q2026 | 2Q2026 | 3Q2026. FULL SERIES INFO.

Below, please find updates on the RADIUM AGE project from 3Q2026.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

In August we published Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men (abridged edition; originally p. 1930), with a new Introduction by Matthew De Abaitua.

“Last and First Men is a seminal work of cosmological SF — a philosophical examination of the future evolution of humanity, inspirational to Arthur C. Clarke and so many of Stapledon’s successors. Great to see it included in The MIT Press’s Radium Age series.” — Charles Stross.

A version of Matthew De Abaitua’s introductory essay, titled “The Man Who Saw Humanity From Two Billion Years Away,” was published on 8/24/26 by the MIT Press Reader. Excerpt:

Last and First Men is not progressive. Civilizations rise and fall, the tide of progress advances and retreats, variants upon the theme of humanity strike up and diminish — what endures of humanity is not spirit in the Christian sense so much as, in the philosophy of the Fifth Men, “a work of tragic art.” The Fifth Men regarded the cosmos as an aesthetic unity in four dimensions. Art focuses aspects of the cosmos, making it apprehensible even if its complexity means that it can never be entirely known.

Press for MITP’s edition of Last and First Men includes the following…

“A story of the ongoing evolution of humanity that’s considered a classic of the genre. Radium Age’s new edition [of Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men] has a few enticing extras, including an introduction from IF THEN author Matthew De Abaitua and some truly excellent cover artwork from Seth depicting several stages in humanity’s development.” — Reactor’s Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for July and August 2026

“The story is epic in every sense of the word: it spans billions of years, following the evolution of humanity from Earth far, far into the future, with plenty of highs and lows as they progress. The MIT Press and Joshua Glenn have added this abridged version of the book to their ongoing Radium Age series. It comes with an introduction by British author Matthew De Abaitua.” — Transfer Orbit

“The rise, fall, and rebirth of humanity.” — LitHub

More exciting installments in this series, including anthologies and collections, some of them currently being translated into English, are in the works. For the latest updates, keep an eye on this page.

ONGOING RESEARCH

Harue Koga’s “Intellectual Expression Crossing the Reality Line” (1931)

Here at HILOBROW, during 2Q2026 Josh continued to share his Radium Age-related research. For example…

Josh continued to publish new installments in EMANATIONS, a series of posts each of which features 10 of his favorite examples of Radium Age-era fine art exploring a particular proto-sf-adjacent theme. The series’ 3Q2026 installments include:

The series’ 4Q2026 installments will include:

DYSTOPIA / UTOPIA: BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN | BRAVE NEW WORLD | FROM EACH… | GEOMETRICAL UTOPIA. FAR-OUT MATHEMATICS / FOURTH DIMENSION: MATHEMATICAL SUBLIME | NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY. FUTURE WAR: BITE THE BULLET | WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. NEW TECHNOLOGIES: TRANSPORTATIONAL SUBLIME | TECHNOLOGICAL SUBLIME | THINGS ARE IN THE SADDLE.

HILOBROW published further installments in the series RADIUM AGE POETRY. Here’s a sampling of the 3Q2026 lineup:

Here’s a sampling of the 4Q2026 lineup:

Josh has surfaced over 500 proto-sf-adjacent poems; so far, he has published ~200 of them here at HILOBROW. To see the RADIUM AGE POETRY lineup, organized thematically, please visit this page.

During 3Q2026 Josh has continued to build out the RADIUM AGE POETRY index linked to above, as well as the RADIUM AGE ART index. He has also begun sorting — into the same categories as these other indices — the Radium Age proto-sf novels and stories collected in the earlier series RADIUM AGE TIMELINE. Here are the RADIUM AGE TIMELINE installments that were retrofitted during 3Q2026:

1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931

SERIALIZATIONS

Here at HILOBROW, as we have been doing for a decade now, during 2025 we serialized some of Josh’s favorite Radium Age proto-sf stories and novels. Here’s the 3Q2026 lineup:

Jack London’s “Goliah” (1908/1910)
Gertrude Atherton’s Black Oxen (1923, excerpt)
Fred C. Smale’s “The V Force” (1913)
Arthur Machen’s The Terror (1916/17)

Here’s the 4Q2026 lineup:

Yefim Zozulya’s “The Dictator” (1919)
José Moselli’s “Le Messager de la planète” (1924, trans. Josh Glenn)
David H. Keller’s “The Eternal Professors” (1929)

SPREADING THE WORD

Here’s a sampling of 3Q2026 series publicity:

In the June issue of Fortean Times, David V. Barrett writes, about the MIT Press’s edition of Flaxman Low: “A collection of stories first published in 1898–99 about an investigator bringing scientific principles (specifically from the newly-forming discipline of psychology) to the study of supposedly occult occurrences — hauntings, unexplained deaths and so on. They’re an enjoyable read, though … stylistically very much of their time.”

Reactor had the following to say about the MIT Press’s edition of Last and First Men. “A story of the ongoing evolution of humanity that’s considered a classic of the genre. Radium Age’s new edition has a few enticing extras, including an introduction from IF THEN author Matthew De Abaitua and some truly excellent cover artwork from Seth depicting several stages in humanity’s development.” — Reactor’s Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for July and August 2026
On August 7, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Emily A. Bernhard Jackson had the following to say about the MIT Press’s edition of Beatrice the Sixteenth. “As time passed, men managed to claim both SF and utopian fiction for themselves. There were exceptions — Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915) is the best-known — but until recently they seemed to be few. Now MIT Press and the newer Manderley Press are challenging this impression, the former offering Irene Clyde’s Beatrice the Sixteenth, the latter Susan Ertz’s Woman, Alive — two very different feminist utopian novels of the twentieth century — in thoughtfully edited editions.”
On August 11, the website Forces of Geek included the MIT Press’s edition of Last and First Men on its 2026 Summer Reading List.
On August 24, a version of Matthew De Abaitua’s introductory essay was published by the MIT PRESS READER. (See above.)

Nice photo of Radium Age titles on display, from the FB account of Bobzbay Books, a LGBTQ+ woman-owned independent bookstore in Bloomington, Ill.

***

On to 4Q2026…

***

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 ART: Proto-sf and science-related fine art 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.

RADIUM AGE 3Q2026

Categories

Tags