The second edition of The Phoenix Pick Anthology of Classic Science Fiction is a collection of speculative fiction from across the nineteenth century, and into the early twentieth, that showcases many of the genre’s earliest achievements. Each of the stories included in this volume has stood the test of time, many of the themes reflected by their authors still relevant to us today. They will move you, they will make you think, but better still, these words from the past will fill you with a sense of wonder for the future.

THE BIRTH MARK (1843) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe
THE BELL TOWER (1855) by Herman Melville
THE TALE OF NEGATIVE GRAVITY (1884) by Frank R. Stockton
TO WHOM THIS MAY COME (1889) by Edward Bellamy
IN THE YEAR 2889 (1889) by Jules Verne
IN THE YEAR TEN THOUSAND (1892) by William Harben
THE DAMNED THING (1893) by Ambrose Bierce
THE RAY OF DISPLACEMENT (1903) by Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford
THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS (1905) by H. G. Wells
FINIS (1906) by Frank Lillie Pollock
THE MACHINE STOPS (1909) by E. M. Forster
AS EASY AS A.B.C (1912) by Rudyard Kipling
THE RED ONE (1918) by Jack London
FRIEND ISLAND (1918) by Francis Stevens
DAGON (1919) by H. P. Lovecraft
FESSENDEN’S WORLDS (1937) by Edmond Hamilton
THE BLUE GIRAFFE (1939) by L. Sprague de Camp
THEY (1941) by Robert A. Heinlein
THE FIRST SCIENCE FICTIONS: Afterword by Paul Cook