The Lost Worlds Romance

These romances reflect the developing natural and social sciences of the times in which they were written. The themes of evolution, teleportation, human longevity, euthanasia, other dimensions, reincarnation, uses of radium, utopian and dystopian societies, among many others, play a prominent part. Darwin, Marx, and Freud have influenced the authors of these romances. Becker demonstrates that at a time when the sexual mores of mainstream fiction were fairly repressed, writers of the Lost Worlds Romance were permitted much liberty with the erotic imagination. The treatment given to women in these romances is explored.