Listen to audio

Stream (help)

128kbps M3U (Hi-Fi)
64Kbps M3U (Lo-Fi)

Play / Download (help)

(190.4 M)64Kbps MP3 ZIP

Resources

Edward George Bulwer-LyttonThe Coming Race (June 28, 2008)

Would you like to try our new video/audio player ? (beta!)

LibriVox recording of The Coming Race, by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. Read by Maire Rhode.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803-1873) was an English novelist, poet, playright, and politician. Lord Lytton was a florid, popular writer of his day, who coined such phrases as "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", and the infamous incipit "It was a dark and stormy night." Despite his popularity in his heyday, today his name is known as a byword for bad writing. San Jose State University holds an annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing in which contestants have to supply terrible openings of imaginary novels, inspired by his novel Paul Clifford, which opens with the famous words: “It was a dark and stormy night”.

The Coming Race drew heavily on his interest in the occult and contributed to the birth of the science fiction genre. Unquestionably, its story of a subterranean race of men waiting to reclaim the surface is one of the first science fiction novels. The novel centres on a young, independently wealthy traveler (the narrator), who accidentally finds his way into a subterranean world occupied by beings who seem to resemble angels, who call themselves Vril-ya. The hero soon discovers that they are descendants of an antediluvian civilisation who live in networks of subterranean caverns linked by tunnels. The narrator suggests that in time, the Vril-ya will run out of habitable spaces underground and will start claiming the surface of the earth, destroying mankind in the process, if necessary. (Summary compiled from Wikipedia)

For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit LibriVox.org.

M4B format available


This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
Date: 2008-06-28
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; literature; audiobook; science fiction; sci-fi; Vril-ya;

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 11,505 times Reviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: jxchristopher - - February 21, 2010
Subject: a subterranean utpoia (sorta)
A Hollow Earth science fiction-y story by Edward "It was a dark and stormy night" Bulwer-Lytton.

A fair plot made much more entertaining through a great reading from Maire Rhode.

Ya Librivox!

Reviewer: mikezane - - November 19, 2009
Subject: Dry book somehow
I am not giving this book a rating, just a review because I could not finish this book.

The storyline seemed very dry, the hero fell down a hole and encountered some beings who learned his language by manipulating his mind somehow. That's about the farthest I got, it just didn't pick up and I lost interest in it. I think it just wasn't my type of hype.

The reader was excellent, however, and I would not discourage anyone from giving it a try, it just didn't capture MY attention. :-)

Reviewer: zz_07 - - November 13, 2009
Subject: good reading
Thanks.