PREFACE. If it be the good fortune of this work to possess any interest for the Novel reader, that interest, perhaps, will be but little derived from the customary elements of fiction. The plot is extremely slight, the incidents are few, and with the exception of those which involve the fate of Vivian, such as may be found in the records of ordinary life. Regarded as a Novel, this attempt is an experiment somewhat apart from the previous works of the author. It is the first of his writings in which Humor has been employed, less for the purpose of satire than in illustration of amiable...

Extract: THOU must not, my old and partial friend, look into this work for that species of interest which is drawn from stirring adventures and a perpetual variety of incident. To a Novel of the present day are necessarily forbidden the animation, the excitement, the bustle, the pomp, and the stage effect which History affords to Romance. Whatever merits, in thy gentle eyes, Rienzi, or The Last Days of Pompeii, may have possessed, this Tale, if it please thee at all, must owe that happy fortune to qualities widely different from those which won thy favour to pictures of the Past. Thou must...

The Power of The Coming Race is a powerful novel that fired the imagination of readers starting in the 1870's. Among the earliest examples of what would become the genre of science fiction, among many authors it influenced H. G. Wells, Samuel Butler, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The book tells the story of a young American adventurer who discovers a portal to an underground world at the bottom of a mine shaft. In this world lives a highly advanced race, with a dark secret.Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (May 25, 1803-January 18, 1873) was an English novelist, poet,...