The Perversity of Things:
Writings on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction
Hugo Gernsback | Grant Wythoff, editor

The Evolution of Modern Science Fiction

, 1952

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The writer has frequently been called the “Father of Science Fiction” (TIME magazine, January 3, 1944; New Yorker magazine, February 13, 1943; and many others).1 Usually authors not quite familiar with the writer’s early work set the date of the start of modern science fiction in the year 1926, which date coincides with the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, the first issue of which was launched by the writer in April, 1926.

We would like to correct this view for historical purposes. Modern science fiction, like so many other endeavors, had an orderly evolution, as the preaent paper will clearly demonatrate.

The date whioh the writer would like to fix the year is 1911, not 1926. 1911 was the year in which the writer’s novel, Ralph 124C 41+, ran serially in Modern Electrics, which, at the time, had a circulation of around 100,000 copies. The novel caused so much comment and brought so much mail from readers that, at the end of the serial in 1912, it was found necessary to continue science fiction in some manner. We thereupon endeavored to secure authors who could continue science fiction in Modern Electrics.

Jacques Morgan was one of the first authors, and he wrote a long series of humorous science fiction under the title, The Scientific Adventures of Mr. Fosdick. Later, in other Gernsback magazines, new authors such as George Frederic Stratton, Charles S. Wolfe, C.M. Adams, Clement Fezandié, Ernest K. Chapin, Herbert L. Moulton, and many others came into the fold. In 1923, we persuaded H.G. Wells to run a few of his less well-known science fiction stories in the writer’s magazine, Science and Invention.

1923 also marked the debut of veteran author Ray Cummings, who has left his impress upon modern science fiction. From then on, there were many other well-known authors who continued writing for our magazines, including Professor Doctor Donald Menzel, now of the Harvard University Observatory. We also secured the veteran science fiction author Abraham Merritt’s “The Metal Emperor,” which ran serially in Science and Invention. During the radio boom, in the writer’s former magazine, Radio News, we secured a number of science fiction humorous stories by that outstanding humorist, Ellis Parker Butler. Other science fiction stories in Radio News were by the outstanding science fiction author, Robert Francis Smith.

We also made a reprint of Victor MacClure’s famous science fiction story, “The Ark of the Covenant.” This ran serially in Practical Electrics and The Experimenter, both Gernsback magazines. For the record, the total circulation of the magazines listed in this paper ran considerably better than 1,000,000 copies—Radio News alone, in the height of the 1920-23 radio boom, ran over 400,000 copies a month.

Little wonder, therefore, that modern science fiction got an excellent start, and the avidity with which the readers of the time absorbed science fiction was remarkable, as testified by the thousands of letters which poured into our publication offices month after month. Thie birth of the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, published by the writer in 1926, therefore was an orderly evolutionary process of modern science fiction.

As newer science fiction readers cannot very well be acquainted with the facts cited above, it was thought apropos to compile a complete list of early science fiction stories as they appeared in the Gernsback magazines. The list which follows was compiled by Mr. Theodore Engel, of New York. It took him several months to go through all the old bound volumes in order to complete his work, and our grateful thanks are due to him for his labors.^[An earlier version of this bibliography, compiled in a July 1944 typescript by Bill Evans titled “The Gernsback Forerunners,” includes the following editorial note: “A number of the early stories would not be classed today as science fiction, but in including them I tried to judge by the time they appeared. … The inclusion of stories has been done according to very liberal standards, especially with Radio News. Hence, one of the stories may have only a faint bit of stf in them, judged by our present standards, but if they are considered in the light of the time they appeared, many of them qualify. In any case of doubt, I included the story.” Evans’s broader definition of what constitutes science fiction led him to list several stories that Engel did not. I have included them here.]

The writer sincerely trusts that this compilation of early modern science fiction stories will be useful to serious researchers in the future. Photostats of the stories may be secured by researchers any time by contacting the writer or his office.

New York, N.Y.

25 West Broadway

August, 1952

Science Fiction in Modern Electrics

The First three volumes, dated from April, 1908 to March, 1911, contained no fiction.

Science Fiction in Electrical Experimenter

NOTE: With the next issue, this magazine changed its name to “Science and Invention.”

Science Fiction in Science and Invention

Science Fiction in Radio News

NOTE: Radio Amateur News for Volume 1 only

Science Fiction in Practical Electrics

NOTE: The first two volumes contained no fiction.

Science Fiction in The Experimenter

NOTE: Name changed from Practical Electrics and continued

  1. @_gernsback_1944; @gibbs_onward_1943. ↩

Grant Wythoff, editor
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