Joshua Glenn is a consulting semiotician and editor of the websites HiLobrow and Semiovox. The first to describe 1900–1935 as science fiction’s “Radium Age,” he is editor of the MIT Press’s series of reissued proto-sf stories from that period. He is coauthor and coeditor of various books including the family activities guide Unbored (2012), The Adventurer's Glossary (2021), and Lost Objects (2022). In the 1990s, he published the indie intellectual journal Hermenaut.

"The tales collected here by Joshua Glenn offer a rich origin story for the ‘superhuman,’ a sci-fi trope that would go on to launch a million comic books . . . and which, in our era of the more-than-human AI, is a prescient one."—Ann Nocenti, Marvel and DC comic book writer"Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in our own pop culture."—The Toronto Star"Before Superman is a joyful as well as thought-provoking volume of an excellent series, insightfully presented by Joshua Glenn. The book is of great interest for all SF lovers but also to all literary and cultural historians, who can only feel encouraged to rethink some of their labels and periodization tools."—Leonardo"As in so much speculative fiction set in imagined futures, these superhumans shed a light on the age in which they were conceived. Rather than strengths, they reveal its anxieties and preoccupations."—The Times Literary Supplement

• Introduction: Homo Superior Ex MachinaJoshua Glenn1 André Marcueil (1902)Alfred Jarry2 Thomas Dunbar (1904)Francis Stevens3 Hannibal Lepsius (1909)M.P. Shiel4 Léo Saint-Clair (1911)Jean de La Hire5 Ralph 124C 41+ (1911–1912)Hugo Gernsback6 Young Diana (1917–1918)Marie Corelli7 Yva (1919)H. Rider Haggard8 Zoo (1921)George Bernard Shaw9 Rudy Marek (1922)Karel Čapek10 Zuanthrol (1924)Edgar Rice Burroughs11 Rotwang (1925)Thea von Harbou12 Professor Challenger (1928)Arthur Conan Doyle

Joshua Glenn is a consulting semiotician and editor of the websites HiLobrow and Semiovox. The first to describe 1900–1935 as science fiction’s “Radium Age,” he is editor of the MIT Press’s series of reissued proto-sf stories from that period. He is coauthor and coeditor of various books including the family activities guide Unbored (2012), The Adventurer's Glossary (2021), and Lost Objects (2022). In the 1990s, he published the indie intellectual journal Hermenaut.

"The tales collected here by Joshua Glenn offer a rich origin story for the ‘superhuman,’ a sci-fi trope that would go on to launch a million comic books . . . and which, in our era of the more-than-human AI, is a prescient one."—Ann Nocenti, Marvel and DC comic book writer"Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in our own pop culture."—The Toronto Star"Before Superman is a joyful as well as thought-provoking volume of an excellent series, insightfully presented by Joshua Glenn. The book is of great interest for all SF lovers but also to all literary and cultural historians, who can only feel encouraged to rethink some of their labels and periodization tools."—Leonardo"As in so much speculative fiction set in imagined futures, these superhumans shed a light on the age in which they were conceived. Rather than strengths, they reveal its anxieties and preoccupations."—The Times Literary Supplement

• Introduction: Homo Superior Ex MachinaJoshua Glenn1 André Marcueil (1902)Alfred Jarry2 Thomas Dunbar (1904)Francis Stevens3 Hannibal Lepsius (1909)M.P. Shiel4 Léo Saint-Clair (1911)Jean de La Hire5 Ralph 124C 41+ (1911–1912)Hugo Gernsback6 Young Diana (1917–1918)Marie Corelli7 Yva (1919)H. Rider Haggard8 Zoo (1921)George Bernard Shaw9 Rudy Marek (1922)Karel Čapek10 Zuanthrol (1924)Edgar Rice Burroughs11 Rotwang (1925)Thea von Harbou12 Professor Challenger (1928)Arthur Conan Doyle

Joshua Glenn is a consulting semiotician and editor of the websites HiLobrow and Semiovox. The first to describe 1900–1935 as science fiction’s “Radium Age,” he is editor of the MIT Press’s series of reissued proto-sf stories from that period. He is coauthor and coeditor of various books including the family activities guide Unbored (2012), The Adventurer's Glossary (2021), and Lost Objects (2022). In the 1990s, he published the indie intellectual journal Hermenaut.

"The tales collected here by Joshua Glenn offer a rich origin story for the ‘superhuman,’ a sci-fi trope that would go on to launch a million comic books . . . and which, in our era of the more-than-human AI, is a prescient one."—Ann Nocenti, Marvel and DC comic book writer"Provides essential background on the rise to dominance of superhumans in our own pop culture."—The Toronto Star"Before Superman is a joyful as well as thought-provoking volume of an excellent series, insightfully presented by Joshua Glenn. The book is of great interest for all SF lovers but also to all literary and cultural historians, who can only feel encouraged to rethink some of their labels and periodization tools."—Leonardo"As in so much speculative fiction set in imagined futures, these superhumans shed a light on the age in which they were conceived. Rather than strengths, they reveal its anxieties and preoccupations."—The Times Literary Supplement

• Introduction: Homo Superior Ex MachinaJoshua Glenn1 André Marcueil (1902)Alfred Jarry2 Thomas Dunbar (1904)Francis Stevens3 Hannibal Lepsius (1909)M.P. Shiel4 Léo Saint-Clair (1911)Jean de La Hire5 Ralph 124C 41+ (1911–1912)Hugo Gernsback6 Young Diana (1917–1918)Marie Corelli7 Yva (1919)H. Rider Haggard8 Zoo (1921)George Bernard Shaw9 Rudy Marek (1922)Karel Čapek10 Zuanthrol (1924)Edgar Rice Burroughs11 Rotwang (1925)Thea von Harbou12 Professor Challenger (1928)Arthur Conan Doyle