Fantastic Worlds

Fantastic Worlds

The companion collection to our exhibition Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780-1910. Travel back to a time when new frontiers of science were emerging. We took to the air, charted remote corners of the earth, and harnessed the power of steam and electricity. Writers explored the farther reaches of this new scientific landscape to craft novels, hoaxes, and satires that captured the imagination of readers.

Pages

Cover of Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa - being a journal of an expedition undertaken under the auspices of H.B.M.'s government in the yea

Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa v.5 (1858)

Barth, Heinrich; Russell E. Train Africana Collection (Smithsonian Libraries)
D. Appleton
1857-58
Cover of Travels in the air.

Travels in the air c. 3

Glaisher, James; Flammarion, Camille; Fonvielle, W. de; Tissandier, Gaston; Vincent Brooks, Day & Son,
R. Bentley
1871
Cover of Volcanoes and earthquakes

Volcanoes and earthquakes

Zurcher; Margollé, Élie; Lockyer, Winifred (James), Mrs.
R. Bentley
1868
Cover of With the night mail a story of 2000 A.D. - together with extracts from the contemporary magazine in which it appeared

With the night mail

Kipling, Rudyard; Leyendecker, Frank X.; Reuterdahl, Henry
Doubleday, Page & Company
1909

Pages