SCIENCE FICTION BY GASLIGHT

The Strand, Pearson's Magazine, Everybody's, Hamptons. The Red Book. The Metropolitan... no center fold-outs but those were brave little magazines back in the good old days when the gaslight didn't mean a nightclub. Mr. Moskowitz, who's becoming a library all by himself, has taken the best science fiction from these and others during the twenty year period 1891-1911. And as they say today, its's fun to find out where out forefather's heads were at. Oddly enough their catastrophes were presented as immediate, no future fiascos for them! X-rays were big and we have one story where a murder was solved by a weird blood count and another where the miracles happening in a small town turned out to be caused by radium. There are some familiar names; Jules Verne envisions an intercontinental sub-sea subway... that leaks. And the favorite monsters were man-eating plants. The author contributes an interesting look at the types and development of the periodicals of the time in his lengthy introduction and the stories themselves are accompanied by his usual pertinent asides. A fun book for the fan and a great gift item for the collector.