French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Roberts, The Palgrave History of Science Fiction
Other Literary Studies

Adam ROBERTS, The Palgrave History of Science Fiction

New York, Palgrave Macmillan (Palgrave Histories of Literature), 2006, 392 pp.

ISBN: 0-333-97022-5

The first comprehensive critical history of the origins and development of science fiction for many decades, The Palgrave History of Science Fiction explores the genre from an international perspective and in depth. It covers SF from the ancient Greeks, through the rebirth of the genre at the Reformation, with detailed coverage of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century science fiction, and a wide-ranging account of twentieth-century sci-fi in book, film, televisual and comic book forms, concluding with an account of the current state of the genre.

Adam Roberts is Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Table of contents:

Introduction: Defining SF

Origins

The Seventeenth Century

The Eighteenth Century

Early Nineteenth Century

Late Nineteenth Century

Wells and Verne

Early Twentieth Century I: 'Pulp'

Early Twentieth Century II: 'High-brow'

Golden Age SF. 1940-1960

1960s Counter-Culture

'New Wave' SF 1960s and 1970s

Cyberpunk and the 1980s

Visual SF 1967-2000

Non Anglo-American SF

SF in the 1990s

Coda: the current state of the genre * Index

Genre histories often seek to map the trajectory of imaginative writing by linking early speculative narratives with modern popular forms. Within literary studies, science fiction is frequently examined through its shifting cultural contexts, technological anxieties, and formal innovations across different media. Historical surveys of this type typically trace how vernacular traditions, philosophical voyages, and technological speculation gradually coalesced into distinct subgenres, from nineteenth-century anticipations to twentieth-century magazine cultures and contemporary multimedia formats.

Readers interested in the historical development of speculative literature and media may find it relevant. The Palgrave History of Science Fiction explores the genre from an international perspective and in depth, covering material from the ancient Greeks through the Reformation, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works, and twentieth-century science fiction in books, films, television, and comic books, while concluding with an account of the current state of the field.