W. H. Walker (1877) The Invasion An account of an imaginary invasion of Australia by a Russian fleet. WE had lived such a hum-drum life at Parkestown for long, that when on the morning of the 18th May, 187—, the Herald was not delivered as usual, I almost felt as if the Solar System had […]
Rev. Thomas Berney (1882) The battle of the channel tunnel and Dover Castle and forts : a letter (March 11th, 1882, but with some corrections and modifications) to the Right Honourable Wm. Ewart Gladstone, M.P., First Lord of the Treasury Sir, I beg leave with great respect to address you upon a subject which has […]
Anonymous (1888) The Russia’s Hope: Or Britannia No Longer Rules the Waves; Showing How the Muscovite Bear Got at the British Whale translated by Charles James Cooke with a preface by William Beatty-Kingston, London, Chapman and Hall Preface: FEW Englishmen, in all probability, realise how fervently the great nation to which they are proud to […]
Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster (1888) In a Conning Tower; or, How I Took H.M.S. “Majestic” into Action. A Story of Modern Ironclad Warfare, Murray’s Magazine Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster (1855 – 1909), was a British politician and writer. He notably served as Secretary of State for War from 1903 to 1905. From boyhood he had devoted himself […]
Samuel Barton (1888) The battle of the Swash and the capture of Canada One of the first novels in the ‘future war’ genre, The Battle of the Swash focuses on what was known in the 1880s as the ‘Canadian Problem’. This was primarily a mercantile dispute deriving from Canada’s high tariffs on American goods. The […]
Albert Robida (1883) La Guerre au Vingtième Siècle A fantastical view of warfare in the 20C from the French illustrator Robida involving aircraft, tanks, chemical and biological weapons. Robida is said to have shown a penchant for satire even in his youth; by 1873, he had founded his own satirical journal, La Caricature. A decade […]
Posteritas (1885) The Siege of London, London, Wyman & Sons CHAPTER 1. ENGLAND’s POLITICAL MISTAKES. —THE EGYPTIAN MUDDLE.— ALARMING SIGNS IN THE FOREIGN POLITICAL SKY. It is not our purpose here to enter fully into the series of extraordinary events which led up to the gigantic disaster, whereby the English nation was crushed into the […]
Anonymous (1887) The Battle off Worthing: why the Invaders never got to Dorking As an example of how other writers picked over the dry bones of the Dorking a ninety-six page novella by an anonymous “Captain of the Royal Navy,” titled The Battle Off Worthing: Why the Invaders Never Got To Dorking (1887), may be […]
William Laird Clowes (1887) The Great Naval War of 1887 Originally published anonymously. Attributed also to Alan Hughes Burgoyne [Charles Gannon (2003) Rumors of War, p.11]. A Future War novel about the coming naval war between Great Britain and France. THE GREAT NAVAL WAR OF 1887. (St. James’s Gazette.) I.-THE DISASTER AT SPITHEAD. At the […]
Frank Richard Stockton (1889) The Great War Syndicate, New York, Dodd, Mead and Company. Later, when Stockton turned to novels, he continued to use sf themes occasionally, though his humorous style remained the most prominent feature. In The Great War Syndicate (1889) a naval Future War between the UK and America – set off by […]