The Literature Book

184

See also: Frankenstein 120–21

T

he term “scientific

romance” originated in the

19th century to describe

speculative writings about natural

history or to condemn scientific

ideas as fanciful. But over time,

as scientific knowledge meant

that ideas about the future grew

more plausible, the label came to

be applied to fictional works that

incorporated aspects of scientific

wonder in the plot.

This was an era in which

Europeans—now obsessed with

technology, social progress, travel,

and adventure—dominated the

world, and it was hoped that

science could help to transform

an era of grime and squalor into

one of comfort and wealth.

Science and exploration

Frenchman Jules Verne (1828–1905)

is the best remembered of the

19th-century scientific romance

writers, demonstrating in his works

a prescient and imaginative taste

for futuristic travel. Verne’s

travelogue Five Weeks in a Balloon

(1863) established his style of

action-packed adventure, playing

with the possibilities of exploration.

From journeying into the air, Verne

turned terrestrial with Journey to

the Center of the Earth (1864), but it

was in the oceans that he achieved

his greatest success in the genre.

In the 1850s Verne began to

develop the idea of an underwater

boat, which became Nautilus, the

ship of Captain Nemo in Tw e n t y

Thousand Leagues Under the

Sea. Verne’s narrative relates the

fabulous tale of Nemo and his crew;

of their spectacular submarine

adventures finding kelp forests and

giant squid in the watery regions of

the world. The wonderfully creative

Verne gave his travelers diving

suits and “air-guns” to use under

water—an amazing vision of

the potential power of scientific

development to enable exploration

of the farthest reaches of the world.

In the early 20th century,

“scientific romance” was largely

superseded by the term “science

fiction,” and the focus shifted to

outer space and the future rather

than “terra incognita.” ■

WE MAY BRAVE HUMAN

LAWS BUT WE CANNOT

RESIST NATURAL ONES

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

(1870), JULES VERNE

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Scientific romance

BEFORE

1818 Frankenstein, by the

English author Mary Shelley,

is published; it is often seen

as the first fictional work with

a scientific focus.

1845 The term “scientific

romance” is used for the

first time, in a review of the

anonymously authored 1844

work Vestiges of the Natural

History of Creation, to describe

its unconventional scientific

ideas as literary fiction.

AFTER

1895 The Time Machine,

H. G. Wells’s first science-fiction

novel, popularizes the concept

of time travel and offers a

dystopian view of the future.

1912 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s

The Lost World extends the

genre of scientific romance

by envisioning dinosaurs in

contemporary South America.

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