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