Distributed for Karolinum Press, Charles University
Crossroads of Imagination
Czech Fantastic Literature 1831–1945
The first anthology of early Czech fantastic writing in translation.
Crossroads of Imagination is a rare English-language study of modern science fiction’s precursors beyond the U.S. and Britain. Many translated for the first time, these thirty texts reflect a rich Euro-Atlantic tradition from the Romantic age to World War II. Authors include Jakub Arbes, Karel Čapek, Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, Ladislav Klíma, Jiří Mordechai Langer, Jan Neruda, Emilie Procházková, Jan Weiss, and Julius Zeyer. The anthology highlights women’s, Jewish, and queer voices.
Prefaces to each selection uncover how new ideas and technologies shaped the European fantastic—positivism, mistrust of elites, pacifism, spiritism, and xenophobia, alongside expansions in communications, transportation, electrification, and technical education. Comparative essays and annotations look beyond “major” literatures and emphasize those of East-Central Europe. Archival images enliven this collection. General and genre readers alike will discover new stories and authors, as well as a fantastic tradition shared across Europe and North America before the advent of modern science fiction.
700 pages | 1 halftone | 5.12 x 7.48 | © 2026
History: European History
Literature and Literary Criticism: Slavic Languages
Reviews
Table of Contents
1 V. R. Kramerius “The Iron Shirt” (1831)
2 Jakub Malý “A Hundred Years On” (1841)
3 Josef Jirí Kolár Hellspawn (1853)
4 Jan Neruda Futuristic Feuilletons (1869–89)
5 Svatopluk Cech “Sketches from the Year 2070” (1870)
6 Julius Zeyer “The Opal Bowl” (1878)
7 Jakub Arbes “Rainbow Point Overhead” (1889)
8 Sofie Podlipská “A View into Hell” (1903)
9 Karel Hloucha “The Black Deep” (1907)
10 Jirí Karásek ze Lvovic Scarabæus (1909)
11 Karel Babánek “The Mysterious Disappearance of Petty Clerk Pištora” (1910)
12 Metod Suchdolský Russians on Mars (1910)
13 Jaroslav Hašek “Austrian Customs Offices” (1912)
14 Jan Havlasa “The Undersea” (1912)
15 Ladislav Velinský “The End of Dr. Snobins’ Immortality” (1912)
16 Karel Matej Capek-Chod The Turbine (1916)
17 Josef Šimánek “The Ruby of Ahmetis” (1916)
18 Emanuel z Lešehradu “Iris Inexorabilis” (1919)
19 Ružena Jesenská “The Soul” (1920)
20 Jirí Haussmann “-1” (1921)
21 Emilie Procházková The Martians (1922)
22 Tomáš Hrubý The Sahara Sun (1924)
23 František Langer “The Man Who Got Lost in His Utopia” (1927)
24 Jan Weiss “The Apostle” (1927)
25 Ladislav Klíma The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch (1928)
26 Jan Barda The Reeducated (1931)
27 Karel Capek “Letters from the Future”: U.S.A., Great Britain, Ireland (1930)
28 Jirí Mordechai Langer Nine Gates (1937)
29 Miles J. Breuer “A Contrivance of Life” (1942)
30 Olga Scheinpflugová The Acheirs: A Utopian Novella (1945)
Afterword by Michal Fránek and Ivan Adamovic
Bibliography
Index