MIT Press’s Fall Radium Age releases. Under the direction of Joshua Glenn, the Radium Age series reissues notable works of proto–science fiction from the underappreciated era between 1900 and 1935, before science fiction crystalized into a genre with established boundaries and rules. This season, we are excited to publish new editions of two famed, influential works that explore an early occurrence of far-future devolution and celebrate the woman who invented dark fantasy.
Originally published in 1920, The People of the Ruins by Edward Shanks (August 6th, 2024), was one of the most critically acclaimed stories of the postwar era. Jeremy Tuft, a veteran of WWI, is haunted by trauma and guilt, and feels out of time and out of place, unsure of what is real or unreal. When he is accidentally cryogenically frozen and awakens to a future of primitive, barbarous war, Tuft is beset by the sins of the past and must confront the terrible power he possesses as the last remnant of a forgotten world. A satire of Wellsian techno-utopian novels, The People of the Ruins is a bold, entertaining, and moving postapocalyptic novel that anticipates classics such as A Canticle for Leibowitz, Earth Abides, and Planet of the Apes. Edward Shanks (1892-1953) was an English author, poet, critic, and journalist. He was the editor of Granta just before serving in World War I and is perhaps best remembered today as a war poet. DIGITAL PAGES
The Heads of Cerberus and Other Stories (September 17th, 2024) is a collection of the essential Francis Stevens stories. Often hailed as “the woman who invented dark fantasy,” Stevens (a pseudonym for Gertrude Barrows Bennett, 1884 – 1948) was the first woman to be widely published in American pulp magazines such as Argosy, All-Story Weekly, and Weird Tales and would go on to influence diverse authors, from H.P. Lovecraft and C.L. Moore, to Philip K. Dick and Suzanne Collins. In the titular Heads of Cerberus, three people in Philadelphia inhale radioactive dust and are transported to a parallel reality in which the city is ruled by a totalitarian regime, forcing the adventurers to escape and ensure that their home avoids the same fate. Here and elsewhere, Stevens challenges racial and class assumptions embedded in American culture by placing them in fantastic frames, making her work as relevant now as it ever was. DIGITAL PAGES
“Lovingly curated. . . . The series’ freedom from genre purism lets us see how a specific set of anxieties—channeled through dystopias, Lovecraftian horror, arch social satire, and adventure tales—spurred literary experimentation and the bending of conventions.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Haunting, complex, profound, and relevant.”
—Foreword Reviews
