Though not as well known as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or H. G. Wells, George Griffith was one of the most popular writers of fantasy and science fiction in England in the closing years of the nineteenth century. Astonishingly prolific, Griffith serialized dozens of works in late-Victorian newspapers and magazines, which found a thriving audience with the rise in literacy and increases in income and leisure time. In his stories and novels Griffith contributed significantly to the development of the "scientific romance" in Britain.

George Griffith was born George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones on 20 August 1857 in Plymouth to George Alfred Jones, a clergyman, and Jeanette Henry Capinster Jones. He was the second of two sons. His family moved as his father changed positions--first in 1860 to Tring in Buckinghamshire, then in 1861 to Ashton-under-Lyne near Manchester. The family moved one more time, to nearby Mossley, where his father was appointed vicar in...