Vril, The Power Of The Coming Race

Vril, The Power of the Coming Race
by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The Coming Race (original title), also reprinted as Vril: The Power of the Coming Race, is a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton published in 1870. The novel is an early example of science fiction, sometimes cited as the first of this genre. However, many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called Vril was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists accepted the book as truth. Furthermore, since 1960 there has been a conspiracy theory about a secret Vril-Society. "I AM a native of ----, in the United States of America. My ancestors migrated from England in the reign of Charles II., and my grandfather was not undistinguished in the War of Independence. My family, therefore, enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth; and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public service. My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by his tailor. After that event he interfered little in politics, and lived much in his library. I was the eldest of three sons, and sent at the age of sixteen to the old country, partly to complete my literary education, partly to commence my commercial training in a mercantile firm at Liverpool. My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the earth..."

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