The Coming Race

1871 [Bulwer-Lytton, Edward] (1803-73). The Coming Race. Edinburgh, Scot.: William Blackwood. Rpt. as by The Right Hon. Lord Lytton. London: George Routledge and Sons, [1874]. Canadian ed. as The Coming Race; or, The New Utopia. Toronto, ON, Canada: Adam, Stevenson, 1871. U.S. ed. as The Coming Race; or, The New Utopia. Reprinted from the English Edition. New-York: Francis B. Felt & Co., 1871. Also published as Vril. The Power of the Coming Race. Blauvelt, NY: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1972; as The Coming Race. Quakertown, PA: Philosophical Publishing Co., 1973 with notes and commentary connecting it to New Age thought by Emerson M. Clymer; Santa Barbara, CA: Woodbridge Press Pub. Co., 1979; Stroud, Eng.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995, with a “Biographical Introduction” by Julian Wolfreys; in British Future Fiction. Ed. I.F. Clarke. 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2001), 1: 143-36; Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002 with an “Introduction” by Brian W. Aldiss (5-11); ed. David Seed. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005; and ed. Peter W. Sinnema. Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Editions, 2008, with extensive appendices. HRC, L, LLL, MoU-St, PSt (The HRC copy has some corrections by the author.)

Classic utopia in the center of the earth. Highly rational winged people illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of reason. Each individual holds the power, called vril, of destroying any other individual and, as a result, all get along well. Some sex role reversal. It was adapted for the stage in 1905. See Jingle [pseud.]. “The Coming Race at St. George’s Hall.” Pick-Me-Up 33.857 (March 4, 1905): 374-75 (L), which is a positive review of a stage adaptation by David Christie Murray (1847-1907) and John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917), a stage magician.