D-503 is the Builder of the Integral, the United State’s first spaceship. A life of calculations and equations in the United State leaves little room for emotional expression outside of the pink slips that give one private time with another Number. The façade however starts to crack when I-330, a mysterious she-Number with a penchant for the Ancients, enters the picture. We, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s fourth novel, was written in 1920–21, but remained unpublished until its English release in 1924 due to conditions in the Soviet Union at the time (it was eventually published there in 1988). Its dystopian future setting predates Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, and it’s now considered a founding member of the genre. It has been translated into English and other languages many times; presented here is the original 1924 translation by Gregory Zilboorg.

Three male explorers set out to reach a legendary land where only women live, and find—to their surprise—that the legends are true. This country hidden in the mountains is a feminist utopia. There are no men, nor is there war, poverty, or crime. The residents subsist on food from cultivated forests, maintain immaculate houses and roads, and reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis. Although the main characters are men, their role is to show us how their notions about society and womanhood are humorously upturned. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an outspoken activist and suffragist, most famous nowadays for her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” As a writer, she was stunningly prolific. She founded The Forerunner, a monthly magazine for which she personally wrote every article, story, and poem. Because she chose to run no advertisements, she covered the cost of printing the magazine herself. In contrast to many women’s publications of the day, Gilman advocated for equal rights and expanded social roles for women. Originally published serially in The Forerunner in 1915, Herland was not republished as a standalone work until decades later. It is the second in Gilman’s Utopian trilogy, along with Moving the Mountain and With Her in Ourland.

Even though Doyle is most famous for his Sherlock stories, he was also a prolific novelist, and The Lost World is one of his more famous non-Sherlock novels. Like many novels of the day, it was first published serially. In it we meet a group of adventurers who head to a deep South American jungle to explore rumors of long-lost dinosaurs. The plot is driven by their journey, discoveries, and subsequent narrow escape. Notably, The Lost World is the novel in which Doyle’s popular recurring character, Professor Challenger, is introduced. Doyle based many of the characters and locations on people and places he was familiar with: the journalist Ed Malone was modeled on E. D. Morel, and Lord John Roxton on Roger Casement; the Lost World itself was based on descriptions of Bolivia in letters sent to Doyle by his friend Percy Harrison Fawcett. The novel remains hugely influential and widely adapted today. The title might even remind modern readers of a certain very famous movie franchise about dinosaur theme parks!

In A Princess of Mars, John Carter is transported to a Mars inhabited by strange civilizations and embarks on various adventures on his quest home. Often held up as a seminal example of pulp science fiction, A Princess of Mars is the first entry in Burroughs’ epic Martian series, and the first to feature the character of John Carter. Though often categorized as just a pulp adventure tale, A Princess of Mars was hugely influential on many budding science fiction writers, professional scientists, and explorers of the day. The novel remains a light, fast-paced, and enjoyable read, and continues to inspire adaptations nearly a hundred years after its publication.

Isaac Asimov’s reputation precedes him; his prolific output of science fiction novels and short stories between the 1940s and the 1990s, along with his many Hugo and Nebula awards, cemented his reputation as the premier science fiction author of his time. His writing, at least in the first half of his career, focused on “hard” science fiction: stories that were broadly founded in realistic science. Indeed, as well as writing fiction, he was a professor of biochemistry, and wrote a wide variety of popular science essays and books. This collection brings together the few Asimov science fiction short stories that are currently known to have passed into the U.S. public domain, arranged in order of publication. It includes one focused on robots and the positronic brain, a subject that he would return to many times over his career.

Griffin, a scientist, has devoted his life to the study of optics. As his work progresses, he invents a method of making a person invisible. After testing the experiment on himself, he comes to realize that while the experiment was a complete success, he has no way of reversing his invisibility. Written in a time of rapid scientific progress and industrial development, Wells uses Griffin’s struggle with his condition and descent into obsession and madness to reflect on the dangers of unbridled scientific progress untempered by compassion or humanity. The Invisible Man was initially serialized in Pearson’s Weekly in 1897, after which it was published as a whole novel that same year.

Dr. William Dyer of New England’s Miskatonic University recounts his experiences on an Antarctic expedition leading to strange, enormous mountains deep within the frozen continent, hiding prehuman horrors only spoken of in esoteric tomes. Reflecting H. P. Lovecraft’s interest in the Antarctic—a continent still very unknown in the 1930s—this story gives a detailed account of the geology and history of Lovecraft’s universe. The dry, scientific text gradually becomes more suspenseful as the expedition uncovers more and more of the cosmic horrors Lovecraft became famous for. Taking inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym and geological discoveries in his time, as well as building on his world established in previous works, At the Mountains of Madness establishes a story following the natural sense of mystery evoked by the frozen and uninhabited southernmost continent.

H. G. Wells’ classic tale of alien invasion has to this day never been out of print. Like many works of the era, it was originally published as a serial—though the publisher, Pearson’s Magazine, demanded to know the ending before committing to publication. The War of the Worlds, with its matter-of-fact narrative style and deft mixture of contemporary science and fictionalized interstellar war machines, became an instant hit. Its themes of colonialism, social Darwinism, good and evil, and total war still resonate with modern-day readers, so much so that it’s been continuously adapted for screen, radio, television, comics, and print.

The Time Machine is the novel that gave us the concept of—and even the word for—a “time machine.” While it’s not Wells’ first story involving time travel, it is the one that most fully fleshes out the concept of a device that can send a person backwards and forwards in time with complete precision. Time machines have since become a staple of the science fiction and fantasy genres, making The Time Machine one of the most deeply influential science fiction novels of the era.

Mary Shelley (then Godwin) and Percy Bysshe Shelley were visiting their friend Lord Byron in Geneva one rainy summer. With the weather against them, they decided to spend their time writing ghost stories for each other. Frankenstein is Mary Shelley’s submission to their contest, later published anonymously in 1818. Victor Frankenstein, a strange but brilliant scientist, discovers a method of imparting life to inanimate matter. The Monster is thus born: a hideous, 8-foot-tall creature of muscle, speed, and intellect. Frankenstein’s rejection of his appalling creation sends it into a spiral of despair, and Frankenstein’s life is never the same. Considered by many to be the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein is a powerful narrative that explores complex themes of belonging, morality, and the consequences of the power over life and death. This edition is based on Shelley’s revised 1831 edition.