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Edisonade
"Edisonade" is a term, coined in 1993 by John Clute in his and Peter Nicholls' ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', for fictional stories about a brilliant young inventor and his inventions, many of which would now be classified as science fiction. This subgenre started in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and had its apex of popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other related terms for fiction of this type include scientific romances. The term is an eponym, named after famous inventor Thomas Edison, formed in the same way the term "Robinsonade" was formed from ''Robinson Crusoe''. History Usually first published in cheaply printed dime novels, most such stories were written to appeal to young boys. The Edisonade formula was an outgrowth of the fascination with engineering and technology that arose near the end of the 1800s, and a derivative of the existing Robinsonade formula. Clute defines the word in his book: As used here the term "edisonade"—d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Edison In Popular Culture
Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. He is often portrayed in popular culture as an adversary of Nikola Tesla. Biographical works * ''Young Tom Edison'' (1940), played by Mickey Rooney. * ''Edison, the Man'' (1940), played by Spencer Tracy. * "The Electric Sunshine Man" is a musical for young voices about the life, times, and inventions of Thomas Edison; generally performed by youth choral groups in schools. * The ''Schoolhouse Rock'' song "Mother Necessity" featured Thomas Edison first as a child intending to be an inventor when he grows up "to make a lamp to help my mommy see..Wowee!/What an excellent application of electricity!" and then as a smart, rich man. * Edison occasionally appeared in caricature form on ''Histeria!'' His first major appearance was in a sketch in which he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Steam Man Of The Prairies
''The Steam Man of the Prairies'' by Edward S. Ellis was the first U.S. science fiction dime novel and archetype of the Frank Reade series. It is one of the earliest examples of the so-called "Edisonade" genre. Ellis was a prolific 19th-century author best known as a historian and biographer and a source of early heroic frontier tales in the style of James Fenimore Cooper. This novel may be inspired by the steam powered invention of Zadoc Dederick. The original novel was reissued six times from 1868 to 1904. A copy of the first 1868 printing with its cover intact is owned by the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia. Summary The first novel starts when Ethan Hopkins and Mickey McSquizzle—a "Yankee" and an "Irishman"—encounter a colossal, steam-powered man in the American prairies. This steam-man was constructed by Johnny Brainerd, a teenaged boy, who uses the steam-man to carry him in a carriage on various adventures. Modern appearances ''The Steam Man'', a five issu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edison's Conquest Of Mars
''Edison's Conquest of Mars'' is an 1898 science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. It was written as a sequel to ''Fighters from Mars'', an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells's 1897 story ''The War of the Worlds''. It has a place in the history of science fiction for its early employment of themes and motifs that later became staples of the genre. The book features Thomas Edison as the primary character, though neither Edison nor H. G. Wells were involved in its creation (although the 2010 edition published by Apogee Books of Canada includes the credit "written in collaboration with Edison"). Set after the devastating Martian attack in the previous story, the novel depicts Edison leading a group of scientists to develop ships and weapons, including a disintegration ray, for the defence of Earth. Edison and company fight the aliens in space and on Mars, eventually causing a flood that defeats the enemy and forces an end to hos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mad Scientist
The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or hubristic nature of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous (evil genius) or antagonistic, benign, or neutral; may be insane, eccentric, or clumsy; and often works with fictional technology or fails to recognise or value common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may have benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental antagonists. History Prototypes The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel ''Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus'' by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Romance
Scientific romance is an archaic, mainly British term for the genre of fiction now commonly known as science fiction. The term originated in the 1850s to describe both fiction and elements of scientific writing, but it has since come to refer to the science fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily that of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. In recent years the term has come to be applied to science fiction written in a deliberately anachronistic style as a homage to or pastiche of the original scientific romances. History Early usages The earliest use of the term "scientific romance" is thought to have been in 1845, when critics applied it to Robert Chambers's ''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'', a speculative natural history published in 1844. It was used again in 1851 by the ''Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal and Literary Review'' in reference to Thoman Hunt's ''Panthea, or the Spirit of Nature''. In 1859 the ''Southern L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Future Eve
''The Future Eve'' (also translated as ''Tomorrow's Eve'' and ''The Eve of the Future''; french: L'Ève future) is a symbolist science fiction novel by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Begun in 1878 and originally published in 1886, the novel is known for popularizing the term " Android". Plot Villiers opens the novel with his main character, a fictionalized Thomas Edison, contemplating the effects of his inventions on the world and the tragedy that they were not available until he invented them. Interrupted in his reverie, Edison receives a message from his friend Lord Ewald, who saved his life some years before and to whom he feels indebted. When Ewald calls, he reveals that he is close to suicide because of his fiancée, Miss Alicia Clary. Alicia is described as being physically perfect but emotionally and intellectually empty. She will say whatever she believes others want to hear. Far from having any ambition or goals of her own, she lives her life based ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Reade
Frank Reade was the protagonist of a series of dime novels published primarily for boys. The first novel, ''Frank Reade and His Steam Man of the Plains'', an imitation of Edward S. Ellis, Edward Ellis's ''The Steam Man of the Prairies'' (1868), was written by Harry Enton and serialized in the Frank Tousey juvenile magazine ''Boys of New York,'' February 28 through April 24, 1876. The four Frank Reade stories concerned adventures with the character's inventions, various robot-like mechanisms powered by steam. A very long series of juvenile novels followed which featured the son of Frank Reade, ''Frank Reade Jr.'', as its teenaged inventor-hero. These stories were written by Luis Senarens, Luis P. Senarens (1865–1939) with the pseudonym ''Noname''. Extremely popular during their time, they were often reprinted and new stories have been created as recently as 2011, in the pulp short story collection, ''Wildthyme in Purple''. They were first serialized in ''Boys of New York'', the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robinsonade
Robinsonade () is a literary genre that takes its name from the 1719 novel ''Robinson Crusoe'' by Daniel Defoe. The success of this novel spawned so many imitations that its name was used to define a genre, which is sometimes described simply as a "desert island story" or a "castaway narrative". In a robinsonade, the protagonist is suddenly separated from civilization, usually by being shipwrecked or marooned on a secluded and uninhabited island. They must improvise the means of their survival from the limited resources at hand. The word "robinsonade" was coined by the German writer Johann Gottfried Schnabel in the Preface of his 1731 work '' Die Insel Felsenburg'' (''The Island Stronghold''). It is often viewed as a subgenre of survivalist fiction. Already in Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668) by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen the shipwrecked protagonist lives alone on an island. Themes In the view of Irish novelist James Joyce, Robinson Crusoe is a symbol of the Bri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Wright (character)
Jack Wright was the hero of a popular series of Victorian science fiction dime novels and story papers written by Luis Senarens, the so-called "American Jules Verne". A few stories are also credited to Francis W. Doughty. Jack appeared in original stories from in 1891 to 1896 in 120 novels. He first appeared in The Boys' Star Library No. 216, July 18, 1891, "Jack Wright, the Boy Inventor; or, Hunting for a Sunken Treasure". Senarens also popularized the Frank Reade dime novel series, having taken the reins from Harry Enton (real name Harold Cohen). Jack Wright appeared in Frank Tousey's ''Boys of New York'' and ''Boys' Star Library'', and then migrated to ''Golden Weekly'' and ''Happy Days'' story papers. These stories were later reprinted in the dime novel '' Pluck and Luck''. Jack Wright is one of the so-called Edisonade characters. The stories were reprinted by Aldine in the UK first in the ''Cheerful Library'' and then in the ''Invention, Travel & Adventure Library''. Ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Clute
John Frederick Clute (born 12 September 1940) is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history"Davis, MattheJohn Clute: Yakfests of the Empyrean, ''Strange Horizons,'' 18 September 2006. and "perhaps the foremost reader-critic of sf in our time, and one of the best the genre has ever known." He was one of eight people who founded the English magazine '' Interzone'' in 1982 (the others included Malcolm Edwards, Colin Greenland, Roz Kaveney, and David Pringle). Clute's articles on speculative fiction have appeared in various publications since the 1960s. He is a co-editor of ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (with Peter Nicholls) and of ''The Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (with John Grant), as well as the author of ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,'' all of which won Hugo Awards for Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auguste Villiers De L'Isle-Adam
Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (7 November 1838 – 19 August 1889) was a French symbolism (arts), symbolist writer. His family called him Mathias while his friends called him Villiers; he would also use the name Auguste when publishing some of his books. Life Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was born in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, to a distinguished aristocratic family. His parents, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint and Marie-Francoise (née Le Nepvou de Carfort) were not financially secure and were supported by Marie's aunt, Mademoiselle de Kerinou. In attempt to gain wealth, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's father began an obsessive search for the lost treasure of the Knights of Malta, formerly known as the Knights Hospitaller, of which Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, a family ancestor, was the 16th-century Grand Master of the order. The treasure had reputedly been buried near Quintin during the French Revolution. Consequently, Marquis Joseph-Toussaint spent la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
