The Journal
The best classic science fiction in the public domain
Science fiction as a genre was invented in the 19th century, and its founding works are better than most of the genre that followed them. These are the essential classic science fiction novels available free to read right now -- the texts that established the vocabulary, the questions, and the forms that science fiction has been working with ever since.
The founding text: Frankenstein -- Mary Shelley (1818)#
Most historians of the genre trace science fiction to Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. The premise -- a scientist creates life in a laboratory using the latest scientific methods -- is science fiction in the strict sense: extrapolation from the science of its time (galvanism, electricity, the new anatomy) into what that science might make possible. The novel's moral and philosophical concerns are not incidental to its science fiction status; they are constitutive of it. Free on Foxing.
The time travel novel: The Time Machine -- H.G. Wells (1895)#
The Time Machine invented time travel as a science fiction premise. The Traveller goes 800,000 years into the future and finds that the class divisions of Wells's 1890s have produced two biological sub-species of humanity: the Eloi, who are decorative and helpless, and the Morlocks, who work underground and feed on them. As socialist allegory and as adventure narrative, it has never been bettered in 90 pages. Free on Foxing.
The alien invasion novel: The War of the Worlds -- H.G. Wells (1898)#
The War of the Worlds established the template for first contact and alien invasion fiction. Martians land in Surrey and systematically destroy the British Empire's military with technology that makes all human response futile. Wells's argument is pointed: the Martians are doing to Britain exactly what Britain had been doing to colonised peoples for a century. The ending -- the Martians destroyed not by human ingenuity but by bacteria -- was shocking and has remained influential. Available free at Project Gutenberg.
The invisibility novel: The Invisible Man -- H.G. Wells (1897)#
A scientist makes himself invisible and discovers that invisibility does not give you power -- it gives you cold, hunger, and inability to eat without being observed. The novel is as interested in the logistics of invisibility as in its thriller plot, and Griffin's deterioration from scientist to criminal is handled with more psychological complexity than the premise suggests. Available free at Project Gutenberg.
The island horror: The Island of Doctor Moreau -- H.G. Wells (1896)#
A scientist surgically transforms animals into near-human beings on a remote island. Wells was engaging directly with Darwin and with the question of what the evolutionary relationship between humans and animals means for human moral distinctiveness. The Beast Folk's law -- "Not to go on all fours... Are we not Men?" -- is one of the most unsettling refrains in Victorian fiction. Available free at Project Gutenberg.
The journey to the moon: The First Men in the Moon -- Wells (1901)#
Two men reach the moon using a material that blocks gravity. They discover a complex insect civilisation underground. Wells uses the moon as a device for examining the conflict between individual and collective organisation -- the Selenites are thoroughly collectivist in a way that both attracts and horrifies the human narrator. Available free at Project Gutenberg.
The submarine voyage: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea -- Jules Verne (1870)#
Captain Nemo and his submarine the Nautilus. Verne was doing something different from Wells -- less interested in social argument, more interested in the technical plausibility of his extrapolations. The Nautilus is a working submarine sixty years before submarines were practical. Verne researched his technology with a rigour that Wells explicitly did not share. Available free at Project Gutenberg.
Further reading#
For the biography of H.G. Wells and what he correctly predicted about the future, who H.G. Wells was and did he predict the future covers his life and his track record.
For short classics including Wells's shortest works, short classics you can finish in a weekend includes The Time Machine and Jekyll and Hyde.