The Perversity of Things
Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction
Published on 21. November 2016
Book
Hardback
444 pages
978-1-5179-0084-7 (ISBN)
Description
In 1905, a young Jewish immigrant from Luxembourg founded an electrical supply shop in New York. This inventor, writer, and publisher Hugo Gernsback would later become famous for launching the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926. But while science fictions annual Hugo Awards were named in his honor, there has been surprisingly little understanding of how the genre began among a community of tinkerers all drawn to Gernsbacks vision of comprehending the future of media through making. In The Perversity of Things, Grant Wythoff makes available texts by Hugo Gernsback that were foundational both for science fiction and the emergence of media studies. Wythoff argues that Gernsback developed a means of describing and assessing the cultural impact of emerging media long before media studies became an academic discipline. From editorials and blueprints to media histories, critical essays, and short fiction, Wythoff has collected a wide range of Gernsbacks writings that have been out of print since their magazine debut in the early 1900s. These articles cover such topics as television; the regulation of wireless/radio; war and technology; speculative futures; media-archaeological curiosities like the dynamophone and hypnobioscope; and more. All together, this collection shows how Gernsbacks publications evolved from an electrical parts catalog to a full-fledged literary genre. The Perversity of Things aims to reverse the widespread misunderstanding of Gernsback within the history of science fiction criticism. Through painstaking research and extensive annotations and commentary, Wythoff reintroduces us to Gernsback and the origins of science fiction.
Reviews / Votes
Grant Wythoff's splendid work of scholarship dispels the dank, historic mists of a literary subculture with starkly factual archival research. An amazing vista of electronic media struggle is revealed here, every bit as colorful and cranky as Hugo Gernsback's pulp magazines-even the illustrations and footnotes are fascinating. I'm truly grateful for this work and will never think of American science fiction in the same way again.-Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, and critic "Hugo Gernsback was one of the strangest and most weirdly influential minds of the twentieth century, and his story has never before been fully told. Grant Wythoff's The Perversity of Things is brilliant and beautiful-indispensible for anyone who wants to understand the collision of technology and culture in which science fiction was born."-James Gleick, author of Time Travel - "The quality of Wythoff's editorial work is outstanding, and it is well served by the clever typographical presentation of the book, pleasant to read, well indexed, and nicely illustrated. Thanks to this work, it should be possible to reframe the figure of Gernsback."-Leonardo Reviews "Wythoff's indispensable account of Gernsback's understanding of the power of media is remarkable in many ways and is expected to reset people's understanding of SF. Wythoff uses examples of Gernsback's writing u fiction stories, essays, articles, editorialsaeven the inventor's own blueprints u to show how a tinkerer launched a new era in written science fiction."-Kirkus Reviews "Each page is a small feast for the intellect."-Paul Levinson's Infinite RegressMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 279 mm
Width: 216 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-5179-0084-7 (9781517900847)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Hugo Gernsback (1884 1967) was a Luxembourgish- American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher who founded the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926. The annual Hugo Awards for the best works of science fiction and fantasy are named in his honor. Grant Wythoff is a postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities and a lecturer in the department of English and comparative literature at Columbia University.
Content
Thematic Contents
Preface: How to Use This Book
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Tinkering
A New Interrupter (1905)
The Dynamophone (1908)
The Born and the Mechanical Inventor (1911)
The Radioson Detector (1914)
What to Invent (1916)
The Perversity of Things (1916)
Thomas A. Edison Speaks to You (1919)
Human Progress (1922)
Results of the $500.00 Prize Contest: Who Will Save the Radio Amateur? (1923)
The Isolator (1925)
The Detectorium (1926)
New Radio "Things" Wanted (1927)
Part II. History and Theory of Media
The Aerophone Number (1908)
Why "Radio Amateur News" is Here (1919)
Science and Invention (1920)
Learn and Work While You Sleep (1921)
The "New" Science and Invention (1923)
Are We Intelligent? (1923)
Part III. Broadcast Regulation
The Wireless Joker (1908)
The Wireless Association of America (1909)
The Roberts Wireless Bill (1910)
The Alexander Wireless Bill (1912)
Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect (1913)
The Future of Radio (1919)
Sayville (1915)
War and the Radio Amateur (1917)
Silencing America's Wireless (1917)
Amateur Radio Restored (1919)
Wired Versus Space Radio (1927)
Part IV. Wireless
[Editorials] (1909)
From The Wireless Telephone (1911)
A Treatise on Wireless Telegraphy (1913)
The Future of Wireless (1916)
From Radio for All (1922)
Radio Broadcasting (1922)
Is Radio at a Standstill? (1926)
Edison and Radio (1926)
Why the Radio Set Builder (1927)
Radio Enters a New Phase (1927)
The Short-Wave Era (1928)
Part V. Television
Television and the Telephot (1909)
A Radio-Controlled Television Plane (1924)
After Television---What? (1927)
Television Technique (1931)
Part VI. Sound
Hearing Through Your Teeth (1916)
Grand Opera by Wireless (1919)
The Physiophone: Music for the Deaf (1920)
The "Pianorad" (1926)
Part VII. Scientifiction
Signaling to Mars (1909)
Our Cover (1913)
Phoney Patent Offizz: Bookworm's Nurse (1915)
Imagination Versus Fact (1916)
Interplanetarian Wireless (1920)
An American Jules Verne (1920)
10,000 Years Hence (1922)
Predicting Future Inventions (1923)
The Dark Age of Science (1925)
A New Sort of Magazine (1926)
The Lure of Scientifiction (1926)
Fiction Versus Facts (1926)
Editorially Speaking (1926)
Imagination and Reality (1926)
How to Write "Science" Stories (1930)
Science Fiction vs. Science Faction (1930)
Wonders of the Machine Age (1931)
Reasonableness in Science Fiction (1932)
Part VIII. Selected Fiction
Ralph 124C 41+, part 3 (1911)
The Scientific Adventures of Baron MUEnchhausen, part 5: "MUEnchhausen Departs for the Planet Mars" (1915)
The Magnetic Storm (1918)
The Electric Duel (1927)
The Killing Flash (1929)
Notes
Index
{~?~ST: end chapter}
{~?~ST: begin chapter}
Chronological Contents
Preface: How to Use This Book
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A New Interrupter (1905)
The Dynamophone (1908)
The Aerophone Number (1908)
The Wireless Joker (1908)
The Wireless Association of America (1909)
[Editorials] (1909)
Signaling to Mars (1909)
Television and the Telephot (1909)
The Roberts Wireless Bill (1910)
From The Wireless Telephone (1911)
The Born and the Mechanical Inventor (1911)
Ralph 124C 41+, part 3 (1911)
The Alexander Wireless Bill (1912)
Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect (1913)
Our Cover (1913)
A Treatise on Wir
Preface: How to Use This Book
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Tinkering
A New Interrupter (1905)
The Dynamophone (1908)
The Born and the Mechanical Inventor (1911)
The Radioson Detector (1914)
What to Invent (1916)
The Perversity of Things (1916)
Thomas A. Edison Speaks to You (1919)
Human Progress (1922)
Results of the $500.00 Prize Contest: Who Will Save the Radio Amateur? (1923)
The Isolator (1925)
The Detectorium (1926)
New Radio "Things" Wanted (1927)
Part II. History and Theory of Media
The Aerophone Number (1908)
Why "Radio Amateur News" is Here (1919)
Science and Invention (1920)
Learn and Work While You Sleep (1921)
The "New" Science and Invention (1923)
Are We Intelligent? (1923)
Part III. Broadcast Regulation
The Wireless Joker (1908)
The Wireless Association of America (1909)
The Roberts Wireless Bill (1910)
The Alexander Wireless Bill (1912)
Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect (1913)
The Future of Radio (1919)
Sayville (1915)
War and the Radio Amateur (1917)
Silencing America's Wireless (1917)
Amateur Radio Restored (1919)
Wired Versus Space Radio (1927)
Part IV. Wireless
[Editorials] (1909)
From The Wireless Telephone (1911)
A Treatise on Wireless Telegraphy (1913)
The Future of Wireless (1916)
From Radio for All (1922)
Radio Broadcasting (1922)
Is Radio at a Standstill? (1926)
Edison and Radio (1926)
Why the Radio Set Builder (1927)
Radio Enters a New Phase (1927)
The Short-Wave Era (1928)
Part V. Television
Television and the Telephot (1909)
A Radio-Controlled Television Plane (1924)
After Television---What? (1927)
Television Technique (1931)
Part VI. Sound
Hearing Through Your Teeth (1916)
Grand Opera by Wireless (1919)
The Physiophone: Music for the Deaf (1920)
The "Pianorad" (1926)
Part VII. Scientifiction
Signaling to Mars (1909)
Our Cover (1913)
Phoney Patent Offizz: Bookworm's Nurse (1915)
Imagination Versus Fact (1916)
Interplanetarian Wireless (1920)
An American Jules Verne (1920)
10,000 Years Hence (1922)
Predicting Future Inventions (1923)
The Dark Age of Science (1925)
A New Sort of Magazine (1926)
The Lure of Scientifiction (1926)
Fiction Versus Facts (1926)
Editorially Speaking (1926)
Imagination and Reality (1926)
How to Write "Science" Stories (1930)
Science Fiction vs. Science Faction (1930)
Wonders of the Machine Age (1931)
Reasonableness in Science Fiction (1932)
Part VIII. Selected Fiction
Ralph 124C 41+, part 3 (1911)
The Scientific Adventures of Baron MUEnchhausen, part 5: "MUEnchhausen Departs for the Planet Mars" (1915)
The Magnetic Storm (1918)
The Electric Duel (1927)
The Killing Flash (1929)
Notes
Index
{~?~ST: end chapter}
{~?~ST: begin chapter}
Chronological Contents
Preface: How to Use This Book
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A New Interrupter (1905)
The Dynamophone (1908)
The Aerophone Number (1908)
The Wireless Joker (1908)
The Wireless Association of America (1909)
[Editorials] (1909)
Signaling to Mars (1909)
Television and the Telephot (1909)
The Roberts Wireless Bill (1910)
From The Wireless Telephone (1911)
The Born and the Mechanical Inventor (1911)
Ralph 124C 41+, part 3 (1911)
The Alexander Wireless Bill (1912)
Wireless and the Amateur: A Retrospect (1913)
Our Cover (1913)
A Treatise on Wir