Classic literature/science

FICTION

Abbott, Edwin A.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Lucian

A True Story

Verne, Jules

Around the World in Eighty Days

Verne, Jules

Earth to the Moon

Verne, Jules

Five Weeks in a Balloon

Verne, Jules

From the Earth to the Moon

Verne, Jules

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Verne, Jules

The Moon-Voyage

Verne, Jules

Off on a Comet

Verne, Jules

Round the Moon

Voltaire

Micromegas

Wells, H. G.

The First Men in the Moon

Wells, H. G.

In the Days of the Comet

Wells, H. G.

The Time Machine

Wells, H. G.

The War of the Worlds

Also available:

"The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells as performed by Orson Welles & the Mercury Theatre on the Air and broadcast on the Columbia Broadcasting System on Sunday, October 30, 1938

Script

Recorded Broadcast

Wells, H. G.

When the Sleeper Wakes

Earliest science fiction

Science fiction is a huge and popular genre and can well serve the populace with sound science but for the most part this genre lives up to part of it name--"fiction". But where did science fiction begin. Most people would say it started with writers like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne--WRONG. It can be traced back to Voltaire's Micromegas [1752]. But wait...maybe back to Johannes Kepler's Somnium [1634]. Nope, let's go even further back to Lucian of Samosata's A True Story [1499]. [NOTE: the 1499 date is for the first printed edition whereas Lucian lived roughly between 125 to 180 AD.]

There are no online copies of Johannes Kepler’s Somnium...so its off to the library or Amazon.com. But, here are Voltaire's Micromegas and Lucian's A True Story.

Voltaire's Micromegas

Lucian's A True Story

Postscript:

One could also include Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, Edward Bulwer Lytton's The Coming Race, W. H. Hudson's A Crystal Age, Richard Jefferies's After London, and Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.