This book is a single-author study of the scientific romances of George Griffith, an imaginative and often radical writer dominant in the 1890s. His works established and popularized the scientific romance, an early and uniquely British form of science fiction. His novels draw on and examine the socio-political changes and technological advances of the 1890s, proposing often startling and radical New World Orders that attempt to address the fears and concerns of his day. Baldwin's examination of Griffith’s engagement with politics, gender roles, and social Darwinism provides the reader with a unique and enlightening insight into the febrile 1890s. This book is the first to focus on an unjustly overlooked and often derided author, reclaiming his place as a father of modern science fiction and as essential and influential as Verne or Wells.

Adam Baldwin is Independent Researcher and Visiting Fellow at the Open University, UK. He completed his BA (Hons) in Literature in 2010 and MA in English in 2013, both also at the Open University, before earning his PhD in 2024 on a part-time basis while working in the NHS. His research interests focus on literature and cultural studies, with a particular emphasis on late nineteenth-century fiction.