Before Superman

Name: Before Superman
Price: 45 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780262553070

Superhumans of the Radium Age

Joshua Glenn, Joshua Glenn

$45

Paperback

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English

MIT Press
19 August 2025

Science fiction

The weird and wonderful stories of the ancestors of today's comic-book and cinematic superheroes.

The weird and wonderful stories of the ancestors of today's comic-book and cinematic superheroes.

Financial Times Best Science Fiction Books of 2025

Superhumans-humans who have evolved into creatures stronger, smarter, and more gifted than we have any reason to be-first showed up in science-fictional narratives during the genre's emergent Radium Age. Originally published between 1902 and 1928, the stories and excerpts anthologized in this volume by Joshua Glenn feature the likes of Marie Corelli's Young Diana, who, having been rendered super-alluring via a rejuvenation experiment, seeks revenge on a sexist society; Francis Stevens's Thomas Dunbar, one of the first lab-created superhumans; Zoo and Yva, superwomen who contemplate the extermination of us mere mortals, thanks to George Bernard Shaw and H. Rider Haggard; and Alfred Jarry's Andre Marcueil, a scientist who develops a super-sexual capacity.

Hugo Gernsback gives us Ralph 124C 41+, a benevolent super-genius inventor who dwells atop a New York skyscraper. M. P. Shiel tells the story of Hannibal Lepsius, a homeschooled prodigy turned amoral tech bro; and Karel Čapek gives us Rudy Marek, an inventor who, having developed superpowers, wonders whether civilization will survive his latest invention. Thea von Harbou's genius scientist, Rotwang, is even less conscientious in his scheming; as is Arthur Conan Doyle's ever-irascible Professor Challenger, here in one of his final outings. Finally, Jean de La Hire's Nyctalope, a popular French superpowered crimefighter character, makes an appearance; and so does Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes . . . though reduced to miniature size.

By: Joshua Glenn, Joshua Glenn
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 200mm, Width: 133mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262553070
ISBN 10: 0262553074
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 19 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Joshua Glenn is a consulting semiotician and editor of the websites HiLobrow and Semiovox. The first to describe 1900-1935 as science fiction's ""Radium Age,"" he is editor of the MIT Press's series of reissued proto-sf stories from that period. He is coauthor and coeditor of various books including the family activities guide Unbored (2012), The Adventurer's Glossary (2021), and Lost Objects (2022). In the 1990s, he published the indie intellectual journal Hermenaut.

Reviews for Before Superman: Superhumans of the Radium Age

""The tales collected here by Joshua Glenn offer a rich origin story for the ‘superhuman,’ a sci-fi trope that would go on to launch a million comic books . . . and which, in our era of the more-than-human AI, is a prescient one."" —Ann Nocenti, Marvel and DC comic book writer ""Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in our own pop culture."" —The Toronto Star