The weird and wonderful stories of the ancestors of today s comic-book and cinematic superheroes. Superhumans humans who have evolved into creatures stronger, smarter, and more gifted than we have any reason to be first showed up in science-fictional narratives during the genre s emergent Radium Age. Originally published between 1902 and 1928, the stories and excerpts anthologized in this volume by Joshua Glenn feature the likes of Marie Corelli s Young Diana, who, having been rendered super-alluring via a rejuvenation experiment, seeks revenge on a sexist society; Thomas Dunbar, one of the first lab-created superhumans; Zoo and Yva, superwomen who contemplate the extermination of us mere mortals, thanks to George Bernard Shaw and H. Rider Haggard; and Alfred Jarry s Andre Marcueil, a scientist who develops a super-sexual capacity. Hugo Gernsback gives us Ralph 124C 41+, a benevolent super-genius inventor who dwells atop a New York skyscraper. M. P. Shiel tells the story of Hannibal Lepsius, a homeschooled prodigy turned amoral tech bro; and Karel ?apek gives us Rudy Marek, an inventor who, having developed superpowers, wonders whether civilization will survive his latest invention. Thea von Harbou s genius scientist, Rotwang, is even less conscientious in his scheming; as is Arthur Conan Doyle s ever-irascible Professor Challenger, here in one of his final outings. Finally, Jean de La Hire s Nyctalope, a popular French superpowered crimefighter character, makes an appearance; and so does Edgar Rice Burroughs s Tarzan of the Apes . . . though reduced to miniature size. Series Overview: Under the direction of Joshua Glenn, the MIT Press s Radium Age is reissuing notable proto science fiction stories from the underappreciated era between 1900 and 1935. In these forgotten classics, science fiction readers will discover the origins of enduring tropes like robots (berserk or benevolent), tyrannical supermen, dystopian wastelands, sinister telepaths, and eco-catastrophes. With new contributions by historians, science journalists, and science fiction authors, the Radium Age book series will recontextualize the breakthroughs and biases of these proto science fiction classics, and chart the emergence of a burgeoning genre.

"The tales collected here by Joshua Glenn offer a rich origin story for the ‘superhuman,’ a sci-fi trope that would go on to launch a million comic books . . . and which, in our era of the more-than-human AI, is a prescient one."
—Ann Nocenti, Marvel and DC comic book writer

"Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in our own pop culture."
—The Toronto Star

"Before Superman is a joyful as well as thought-provoking volume of an excellent series, insightfully presented by Joshua Glenn. The book is of great interest for all SF lovers but also to all literary and cultural historians, who can only feel encouraged to rethink some of their labels and periodization tools."
—Leonardo

"As in so much speculative fiction set in imagined futures, these superhumans shed a light on the age in which they were conceived. Rather than strengths, they reveal its anxieties and preoccupations."
—The Times Literary Supplement

Joshua Glenn is a consulting semiotician and editor of the websites HiLobrow and Semiovox. The first to describe 1900 1935 as science fiction s 'Radium Age,' he is editor of the MIT Press s series of reissued proto-sf stories from that period. He is coauthor and coeditor of various books including the family activities guide Unbored, The Adventurer s Glossary, and Lost Objects. In the 1990s, he published the indie intellectual journal Hermenaut.