Genre deep dive · 2026-04-23 · Reading time ~ 11 min
Where SF and fantasy come from: Shelley to Wells
Most devices of modern SF and fantasy were invented in the 19th century. A guided tour of the genre's public-domain roots — from Frankenstein to time travel, Mars novels, Dracula, and beyond.
Pagera Editorial
Nearly every device modern SF and fantasy take for granted was already built in the 19th century. Artificial life, time travel, interplanetary war, immortal vampires, split identity. This is a reading tour of the genre's roots through public-domain works — all available on Pagera in Korean (or next in the translation queue).
Why read these now
Two reasons. First, understanding where the idioms of modern SF and fantasy came from makes contemporary work read deeper. Blade Runner makes more sense after Frankenstein; Interstellar after The Time Machine; Attack on Titan after The War of the Worlds. Second, these books are short — most around 200 pages, finishable in a weekend.
The core lineup
| Year | Work | Author | Genre contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1818 | Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | Artificial life, creator ethics |
| 1870 | Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne | Tech-centric adventure SF |
| 1886 | Jekyll and Hyde | R. L. Stevenson | Split identity, psychological horror |
| 1895 | The Time Machine | H. G. Wells | The time-travel device |
| 1897 | Dracula | Bram Stoker | Modern vampire mythos |
| 1898 | The War of the Worlds | H. G. Wells | Alien invasion narrative |
| 1873 | Around the World in 80 Days | Jules Verne | Tech-optimist adventure |
| 1884 | Flatland | Edwin Abbott | Dimensional / mathematical SF |
1. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)
Conceived by a 19-year-old in a Swiss villa in the summer of 1816. A creature assembled in a lab awakens and turns to its creator with an ethical claim. No book opened the AI-era ethics conversation earlier than this one. "Am I responsible for what I made?" Two centuries on, the question hasn't aged.
Bequest to modern SF: The creator–created relationship, the subjectivity of artificial life, the arrogance of the isolated intellectual. A line that runs through Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun.
2. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Verne, 1870)
Captain Nemo's submarine Nautilus touring the world's oceans. Verne's techno-optimism is clearest here. He produced effectively a design document for a submarine decades before the real thing. The prototype of "hard SF."
3. Jekyll and Hyde (Stevenson, 1886)
Too supernatural for strict SF, too lab-coated for pure fantasy. The more exact label is "psychological horror." The metaphor of two selves inside one person has been recycled by pop culture for over a century because this book built the mould too well.
4. The Time Machine (Wells, 1895)
The first proper use of time travel as a literary device. The protagonist ventures 800,000 years forward and meets humanity split into two species. Class gap biologically rendered — a late-Victorian social critique. Parts still read as prophecy in 2026.
Bequest to modern SF: The time-travel device itself. Also the "a present observing a future" structure, rarely done this compactly since.
5. Dracula (Stoker, 1897)
Vampires existed in Eastern European folklore, but the modern image — aristocrat, castle, bats, vulnerability to sunlight — was mostly assembled here. A distinctive epistolary structure of letters, diaries, and newspaper clippings. Longer than the others, but the tension holds.
Bequest to modern fantasy: The entire contemporary vampire genre. Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, Bloodborne — all downstream.
6. The War of the Worlds (Wells, 1898)
Martians invade England. The alien appearance, the heat-ray, human powerlessness, the microbial-reversal ending — every alien-invasion narrative since (Independence Day, multiple others) is a variation on this single book.
7. Around the World in 80 Days (Verne, 1873)
Verne's most popular adventure. Closer to "tech-optimist adventure" than strict SF, but the plot was built on accurate knowledge of the era's transport and communication technology, which deeply influenced later SF. Phileas Fogg's precision fetish is funnier than you remember.
8. Flatland (Abbott, 1884)
A satirical novel about a square who lives in a two-dimensional world and discovers the third. The first work to explain "dimension" through literature. Before the physics-and-info popular books, there was this. 130 pages — read it.
Why this lineage matters
Reading contemporary SF and fantasy you bump into "haven't I seen this before?" constantly. Knowing the originals pays off twice. First, current works deepen: Dune's desert messiah, Tolkien's ring of power, Star Wars' Jedi lineage all slot into traditions that become legible once you've read the ancestors. Second, it recalibrates respect. The 19th-century writers polished every device contemporary authors use casually.
Suggested reading order
- Week 1: Jekyll and Hyde (120 pp) — ease in
- Week 2: The Time Machine (140 pp) — the SF template
- Week 3: Frankenstein (300 pp) — the genre's root
- Week 4: Around the World in 80 Days — refresh
- Week 5: Dracula (400 pp) — longer commitment