3 ms·
I wonder if the title "The Shadows of the Coming Race" alludes to "Vril: The Power of the Coming Race", published eight years before, if that phrase was already
by twic 2y ago
I wonder if the title "The Shadows of the Coming Race" alludes to "Vril: The Power of the Coming Race", published eight years before, if that phrase was already in circulation. Google ngrams first sees it in 1868.
- anon84873628 2y agoSure seems likely! Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article for Vril: >When H. G. Wells' novella The Time Machine was published in 1895, The Guardian wrote in its review: "The influence of the author of The Coming Race is still powerful, and no year passes without the appearance of stories which describe the manners and customs of peoples in imaginary worlds, sometimes in the stars above, sometimes in the heart of unknown continents in Australia or at the Pole, and sometimes below the waters under the earth. The latest effort in this class of fiction is The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells." So the phrase "the Coming Race" must have been well established in literary circles, and probably used as a shorthand for what today we might call non-humans or post-humans.