What are your favorite science fiction classics? I don't mean stuff written in the mid-Twentieth Century. I mean the really classic works from the Nineteenth Century and earlier.

I think mine would be a toss-up between Frankenstein by Mary Shelly and The Time Machine (or anything else) by H.G. Wells.

Time Machine for me. I think that may be the only 19th century SF I've read.

The Time Machine would also be my favorite 19th century novel. I've only scratched the surface though! I recently read A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs and I'm in the middle of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I liked the first Barsoom book but the Frankenstein is bogging down for me.

I'm not much on a lot of the pre-1900 SF, although I'll agree with Frankenstein. I read a lot of Jules Verne & H.G. Wells books as a teenager.

Was it Wells in The First Men in the Moon that had that thing about the tea not steeping right? I loved that. It's always stuck in my head.

I can't say I've read a lot - mostly just Verne and Wells. I liked The Time Machine most out of those, although I wouldn't exactly list it on my favorites list. Verne bored me to tears, I don't think I've ever skimmed a book as fast as I did with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

I've read The Island of Dr. Moreau and War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I also own 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, but I haven't read it yet.

Of those, I would have to say that War of the Worlds was my favorite.

The Island of Dr. Moreau was very interesting, but I couldn't get past the cruelty and pain that the animals endured in being vivisected. *shudder* Actually, I sort of had the same issue with Frankenstein, except that Frankenstein's monster's pain was of a different type.

Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

I think H. G. Well's The War of the World's would be my favorite, oldest classic--I like him better than Jules Verne.

Gulliver's Travels. The Arabian Nights. The part in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac where he talks about being drawn to the moon by a boat that runs on moonlight, which is apparently a reference to the real Cyrano de Bergerac's novel The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon which I keep meaning to find and read. Flatland. Some of Edgar Allen Poe.

Well, other than attempting to read The Great Romance: A Rediscovered Utopian Adventure. I forget exactly when it was written (1898 or somwwhere in there). I couldnt get through it because it was just far too silly.

I will say though, and if youre OK with my jumping to 1901, Id like to mention The Purple Cloud. I thought that (for its time) it was absolutely amazing.

I, too love OLD SF as back as far as I can get but not going too too far as the language used becomes kind of a chore to get through. I prefer the turn of the century through to the 30s.

That said, there is a novel I just found called The Hampdenshire Wonder which Ive ordered through ILL that looks great.

Oh, and yes, Ive read The Time Machine and The Invisible Man and loved both of them of course