RADIUM AGE 4Q2024
By:
December 22, 2024
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. FULL SERIES INFO.
Below, please find updates on the RADIUM AGE project from 4Q2024.
During 4Q2024, Josh worked with the MITP editorial team to copy edit the series’ two Fall 2025 titles for publication. Here they are:
- Marietta S. Shaginyan’s Yankees in Petrograd (August 2025, translated from Russian and introduced by Jill Roese). “A novel of our time, in which major events succeed each other with purely cinematographic speed….” — Nikolai Meshcheryakov, “Foreword to the First Edition” (1924) | See this title at the MIT Press website.
- Before Superman: Superhumans of the Radium Age (August 2025, edited and introduced by Josh). An anthology of proto-sf stories and novel excerpts exploring the uncanny (and then brand-new) concept of the “superhuman.” | See this title at the MIT Press website.
Proofreading will happen in early 2025. More info on these titles, along with Seth’s cover illustrations, can be found here.
Three titles (two novels and a story collection) have been approved for 2026; and one (an anthology of translated stories) so far for 2027. Also, Josh is collaborating with translators and anthology editors on proposals for three other titles; these will be pitched to the MITP editorial board in 2025.
Here at HILOBROW, during 4Q2024 Josh continued to share his Radium Age-related research. For example…
Via the series RADIUM AGE POETRY and RADIUM AGE ART, Josh shared proto-sf-adjacent poems and art works from the years 1900–1935.
Here’s the 4Q2024 RADIUM AGE ART lineup:
1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935.
The RADIUM AGE ART series wrapped up earlier this month. Phew!
And here’s a sampling of the 4Q2024 RADIUM AGE POETRY lineup:
Alexander Blok’s “INTO CRIMSON DARK” | J. Lewis Milligan’s THE SUPER-MAN | John Davidson’s “MATTER INCANDESCENT” | Archibald MacLeish’s SIGNATURE FOR TEMPO | Anna Akhmatova’s “ALL IS SOLD, ALL IS LOST” | Robinson Jeffers’ NOVA.
To see the RADIUM AGE POETRY archive (a work in progress), visit this page.
Here at HILOBROW, as we have been doing for a decade now, during 4Q2024 we serialized some of Josh’s favorite Radium Age proto-sf stories and novels. Here’s the lineup:
- Charlotte Haldane’s Man’s World (1926)
- E. and H. Heron’s “The Story of the Grey House” (1899)
- Raymond Roussel’s “The Demoiselle” (from Locus Solus, 1914); in Josh’s translation
- Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford’s The Inheritors (1901)
Here’s what they’re saying about the series:
“Joshua Glenn’s admirable Radium Age series [is] devoted to early- 20th-century science fiction and fantasy.” — Michael Dirda, Washington Post | “Neglected classics of early 20th-century sci-fi in spiffily designed paperback editions.” — The Financial Times | “New editions of a host of under-discussed classics of the genre.” — Tor.com | “The best proto-science fiction novels and stories from 1900 to 1935.” — The Washington Post. | “Long live the Radium Age.” — Scott Bradfield, Los Angeles Times | “Shows that ‘proto-sf’ was being published much more widely, alongside other kinds of fiction, in a world before it emerged as a genre and became ghettoised.” — BSFA Review. | “A huge effort to help define a new era of science fiction.” — Transfer Orbit | “It’s an attractive crusade. […] Glenn’s project is well suited to providing an organizing principle for an SF reprint line, to the point where I’m a little surprised that I can’t think of other similarly high-profile examples of reprint-as-critical-advocacy. ” — The Los Angeles Review of Books | “An excellent start at showcasing the strange wonders offered by the Radium Age.” — Maximum Shelf
Here’s a sampling of 4Q2024 series publicity:
- In October, Michael Dirda’s annual “Best Spooky Stories for the Halloween Season” had the following to say about the MIT Press’s edition of William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land: “It’s an enormously long and wordy novel, but… MIT’s Radium Age [series] offers a more manageable abridged edition. It’s one of those visionary, over-the-top masterworks like George MacDonald’s Lilith or David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus.”
- HILOBROW friend Tony Leone sent me this snapshot of Francis Stevens’ The Heads of Cerberus & Other Stories — the latest installment in the RADIUM AGE series that I edit for the MIT Press. Nice to see it used as a centerpiece in a Halloween-y display, at Newtonville Books (in Newton, Mass.).
- “What makes the Radium Age series so valuable is how it illuminates the origins of science fiction tropes we take for granted,” writes Mark Frauenfelder in a November 25 Boing Boing post. “The Greatest Adventure reveals the literary DNA of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, while The Hampdenshire Wonder tackles transhumanism decades before it became a preoccupation of science fiction and posthumanist philosophy.” Mark also has some kind words to say about Seth’s cover art: “His distinctive style, with its bold lines and noir-influenced aesthetics, perfectly captures the otherworldly atmosphere of these pioneering works.”
HILOBROW friend Rick Pinchera found The Heads of Cerberus at another of our favorite bookstores, Atticus Bookstore Cafe in New Haven… shelved in the Fantasy/Horror section next to Dracula.
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.
On to 1Q2025…