Your home for Vintage Science Fiction from Australian Newspapers

Infinite Anthologies (IA) is a scholarly edition of a literary ecosystem featuring a dataset of recovered vintage science fiction along with an interrelational archive of vintage science fiction from early 20th century Australian newspapers. (Currently in progress. Due for completion by September 2026)

Arguments answered by the existence of this project include:

* Australia's science fiction industry did not start in the 1940s, as some websites may suggest. Australia's vintage science fiction literary scene thrived in newspapers since at least 1832. [See Australia Advanced: Dialogues for the Year 2032] and hundreds of science fiction stories were published in Australian newspapers between 1832 and 1955.

* Unlike stories labelled science fiction today, many stories in the science fiction origin period were, of course, science-focused. While much has been written about the connection between science and technology and scientific romances in the UK and scientifiction in the USA, not much has been written on 'science in fiction' in Australia. Infinite Anthologies' collection of story items not only shows that Australia's vintage science fiction literary history is strongly influenced by science, technology and invention, but also links to possible newspaper articles of the time that may have influenced the writers in writing their stories. This gives researchers not only a deeper understanding of the processes that go into writing a science fiction story but, on a more personal level for Neil, encourages future science fiction writers to easily acquire the method of incorporating science in science fiction.

* Vintage science fiction writers over a hundred years ago could predict scientific and technological progress relatively accurately. To show this, a story item lists its predicted scientific concept or technological invention. If that later manifests, newspaper article links are added so that researchers can consider the accuracy of the prediction. This not only presents the idea that science fiction writers can predict scientific advances accurately, but also to encourage new readers to explore past science fiction as a way to prepare for the future.

* Australians loved science fiction in the early 20th century. While stories abound of a stigma attached to science fiction by the rest of the public for much of the 20th century, possibly starting around the 1940s in the USA, (buying science fiction magazines in brown paper bags), perhaps influenced by the juvenile raygun period, Australia's science fiction appreciation was high during the Invention Rush of the 1860s to the 1910s, making science in fiction stories part of the reading landscape, and attracting popular authors who wrote in other fields such as Banjo Patterson, Adelaide Primrose and Bernard Cronin to try their hand at stories that could now be classified as vintage science fiction.

Visit the About IA page for more details, and click on the interactive chatbot 'Agent Neil' at the bottom of the page to ask a general question about the site and its contents. Agent Neil will reply in Neil Hogan's digitised voice. Also, Agent Neil has access to several languages so say the language you wish to speak and if it is available, Agent Neil will answer your question in your language.

This site features vintage science fiction stories from Australian newspapers extracted from the To Be Continued Australian Newspaper Fiction Database and the National Library of Australia's Trove Archive. (Work currently in progress. A new title is added almost every week. Estimated completion date September 2026).

The site uses Omeka S, so each story is stored as an item with attached media with 50 property fields of information for researchers. (Only those fields that contain information are shown.) You are welcome to visit the items and learn about each of the stories, as well as consider the references and arguments Neil has included in the fields.

In the future, media will be attached to each of the items so that the stories can be downloaded as simple reader editions by logged-in users. A few may also appear as scholarly editions in pdf format, and as audio ebooks.

Click on the Search link in the menu and choose from several sets of Vintage Science Fiction and Science Articles to see a list of the current contents with some details.

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Content Advisory:
These items are historical texts digitised from their original publication, and reflects the social attitudes, cultural values, and language of the time in which they were created. Some content may include depictions or references that are racist, sexist, ableist, colonialist, or otherwise offensive by contemporary standards. This material is presented uncensored for scholarly, archival, and educational purposes. It serves as a record of past cultural attitudes and is preserved here to support critical engagement, historical reflection, and the advancement of inclusive scholarship.

Reader discretion is advised.

 

Featured Infinite Anthologies Title

The World's Last Wonder annotated edition

The World's Last Wonder (1901) by Anonymous [Attributed to John Arthur Andrews]

Australia's first space opera (planetary fiction) featuring two antagonistic space cars in a race to Mars.

The Infinite Anthologies site features basic summaries of 200 vintage science fiction stories from Australian newspapers, published between 1832 and 1955. Neil's digital humanities project is focused on 50 stories by Australian authors published in Australian newspapers between 1901 and 1939. The main stories are listed below. Metadata of each of these items will be updated by September 2026.

  1. The World’s Last Wonder 1901 by John Arthur Andrews
  2. The Siege of Sydney. The War of Tomorrow 1901 by Henry Fletcher
  3. The Professor’s Experiment 1906 by Adelaide Primrose
  4. The Invasion of Australia. A Forecast. 1906 By Ambrose Pratt
  5. A Modern Atlantis 1907 by Mrs Percy R. Meggy [Sarah Myrtle]
  6. The Silver Ball 1908 by J. B. C
  7. The Blue Bolt 1908 by J. B. C
  8. The Inoculation of Ideas 1908 by J. B. C
  9. Mr. Austin’s Airships 1908 by J. B. C
  10. A Trip to the Moon 1909 by F. N.
  11. An Aerial Adventure, or The Secret of a Scientist 1910 by Victor D. A. Courtney
  12. Love, and the Aeroplane. A Tale of Tomorrow 1910 by John Sandes
  13. The Dark Planet 1913 by Charles H. Hunt
  14. The Automatic Pen. Guaranteed to Spell Correctly 1919 by Kate Helen Weston
  15. The Inventions of Mr Potty I. The Automatic Preacher 1919 by A Needham
  16. The Inventions of Mr Potty II. The Mechanical Rooster 1919 by A Needham
  17. The Great Mendax Transmitter 1920 by Erle Cox
  18. The Invisibility of Mendax 1920 by Erle Cox
  19. The Mendax Gold Saver 1920 by Erle Cox
  20. The Antarcticans. Being the Further and Still More Surprising Adventures of Captain Bjornvik in the Regions Around the South Pole 1922 by A. J. Boyd [William Alexander Jenyns Boyd]
  21. The Rejuvenation of Slogger Bins 1924 by Erle Cox
  22. Alarm 1925 by Barbour Gilbert
  23. The Devolution of Man 1928 by Erle Cox
  24. The Star Germs 1928 by Bernard Cronin [Reprinted in another newspaper as The Satyr in 1938 by Eric North, and in an American magazine as Three Against the Stars in 1938 also by Eric North]
  25. Skirmish Posts of Earth 1929 by H. Haverstock Hill [Later republished as The Secret of the Crater 1930]
  26. The Ether King 1929 by Arthur Russell
  27. Bunkentwaddle’s Odicaster 1929 by E. H. Cox (Erle Cox)
  28. Eagles of Queensland 1930 by Delaware
  29. Breed of the ANZACS by C. K. Thompson
  30. The Red Life. An Australian Story of Ambition, Invention and Romance 1931 by Rex Staughton [Bernard Cronin] [Later reprinted as The Death Doctor]
  31. The Robot Age of the Future: A Glimpse of Hobart in 3,000 A. D. 1932 by C. D. Stevens
  32. The Cruise of the Golden Caterpillar 1934 by Eric North [Bernard Cronin]
  33. The Automatic Killers 1934 by Philip James O’Donnell
  34. The Return from Mars by Hal Pink [Barrington Beverley]
  35. Venus Calling 1934 by Frank H. Bodle
  36. Silence 1934 by Barrington Beverley [Harry Leigh Pink]
  37. The Missing Dimension 1934 by Barrington Beverley [Harry Leigh Pink]
  38. Maureen’s Mating 1934 by Charles Gordon
  39. The Red Terror 1935 by Barrington Beverley [Harry Leigh Pink]
  40. The Space Raiders 1935 by Barrington Beverley [Harry Leigh Pink]
  41. Mystery at Maralinga 1936 by I. A. Shead
  42. Boys of 2036 (1936) by Carl Hagan
  43. Captain Midnight 1936 by John Kirke
  44. The Men of Mars 1937 by Unattributed
  45. An Awkward Dilemma 1937 by Erle Cox
  46. Sea Gold. The Romance of a Pirate Submarine 1937 by Bos’n Haul [Geoffrey Rawson]
  47. The Quest of the Costa Rica 1937 by Jerry Wakefield
  48. Fool’s Harvest 1938 by Erle Cox
  49. Secret of the Rays 1938 by Will Lawson
  50. A Mover of Mountains 1939 by Arthur W. Uppfield