Adventures Underground! What an amazing place to tell a story. Jules Verne chose it well when he wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Verne took his explorers inside the Earth. Hugo Gernsback reprinted that novel in 1926, knowing that future Science Fiction writers could use a similar setting to tell new tales of wonder and discovery. Clare Winger Harris, in her 1931 survey of Science Fiction topics listed it as: “#14 – Unexplored portions of the globe; submarine, subterranean, etc.” That pairing of the underground tale with the undersea tale is a natural. Verne gave us the other in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Here is a listing of underground fiction that appeared in the Pulps between the 1920 to the 1950s as well as novels by Pulp writers. All the usual editors are here: Hugo Gernsback, of course, along with T. O’Conor Sloane, Harry Bates, Ray A. Palmer, Farnsworth Wright and Dorothy McIlwraith.
A Trip to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (Amazing Stories, June July 1926) is a well known classic about explorers who enter the Earth and discover an interior world filled with dinosaurs and adventure. Verne inspired many who followed, including Edgar Rice Burroughs who put the interior world of Pellucidar inside the Earth.
At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (All-Story Weekly, April 4 – 25, 1914)
Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs (All-Story Cavalier Weekly, May 1 – 29, 1915)
Tanar of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Blue Book Magazine, March – August 1929)
“The Menace From Below” by Harl Vincent (Science Wonder Stories, July 1929)
Tarzan at the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Blue Book Magazine, September 1929 – March 1930)
“Underground Waters” by A. C. Webb (Science Wonder Quarterly, Winter 1930)
“The Return to Subterrania” by Harl Vincent (Science Wonder Stories, April 1930)
“The Cavern World” by James P. Olsen (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June 1930)
“The Subterranean Adventure” by George Paul Bauer (Wonder Stories, June July August 1930)
“The Troglodytes” by Fred M. Barclay (Amazing Stories, September 1930)
“Lords of the Deep” by Henry F. Kirkham (Wonder Stories, November 1930)
“Morgo the Mighty” by Sean O’Larkin (John F. Larkin) (The Popular Magazine, August 15- October 1, 1930)
“The Ape-Men of Xlotli” by David R. Sparks (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930)
“When the Mountain Came to Miramar” by Charles W. Diffin (Astounding Stories, March 1931)
“Four Miles Within” by Anthony Gilmore (Harry Bates & Desmond W. Hall) (Astounding Stories, April 1931)
“The Great Catastrophe of 2947” by Woods Peters (Amazing Stories, May 1931)
Tam, Son of the Tiger by Otis Adelbert Kline (Weird Tales, June-July August September October November December 1931)
“If the Sun Died” by R. F. Starzl (Astounding Stories, August 1931)
“The Crystal Empire” by Sidney D. Berlow (Wonder Stories, January 1932)
“Two Thousand Miles Below” by Charles W. Diffin (Astounding Stories, June September November 1932 January 1933)
“Caverns of Horror” by Laurence Manning (Wonder Stories, March 1934)
The Secret People by John Beynon (John Wyndham) (1935) reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries.
“In Caverns Below” by Stanton A. Coblentz (Wonder Stories March, April, May 1935)
“I Found Cleopatra” by Thomas P. Kelley (Weird Tales, November December 1938 January February 1939)
Back to the Stone Age (aka Seven Worlds to Conquer) by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Argosy, January 9 – February 13, 1937)
“The Mound” by H. P. Lovecraft (Weird Tales, November 1940) For more on this story, go here.
“Return to Pellucidar” by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Amazing Stories, February 1942)
“Men of the Bronze Age” by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Amazing Stories, March 1942)
“Tiger Girl” by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Amazing Stories,April 1942)
“Savage Pellucidar” (Amazing Stories, November 1963)
Conclusion
Science Fiction writers have so many choices when it comes to setting: distant planets, the far future, other dimensions. Underground adventures bring the adventure a little closer to home, taking place under our very feet. It was fun to think of dinosaurs running around under the streets of our quiet homes.
