Summary
Summary of The Coming Race
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A hidden world tests human hopes
An unnamed young American explores a passage below a mine and discovers a civilisation far beneath the surface. Its people are taller, stronger and longer lived than humans, and they control a mysterious energy called vril. Their world offers more than the promise of adventure.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton presents the journey in the manner of a traveller’s report. Through this encounter, he combines satire of Victorian life with a question that runs through the tale: what might a perfect society cost?
Key idea 2
Curiosity leads the traveller below
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Key idea 3
Hospitality carries a hint of captivity
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Key idea 4
Vril supports comfort and threatens destruction
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Key idea 5
Contentment leaves something human behind
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Key idea 6
Courtship changes the balance of power
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Key idea 7
Understanding reveals the limits of welcome
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Key idea 8
Progress does not settle every question
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Key idea 9
Wonder gradually gives way to unease
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who love early science fiction, Victorian satire and imagined societies, and enjoy exploring ideas about peace, progress and freedom.
What this book is
The Coming Race is a short novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first published without his name in 1871 and later known as his work. Bulwer-Lytton was a politician and a popular novelist of the Victorian age. Here he writes a tale of travel to an underground world, in the manner of a traveller's report.
The story is told by an unnamed young American who explores a passage below a mine and finds a hidden civilisation far below the surface. Its people are taller, stronger and longer lived than humans, and they command a mysterious energy called vril. You get an adventure, a satire of Victorian life, and a thought experiment about what a perfect society might cost. Let us begin with how the narrator first goes down.
In this summary
- 1A mine shaft opens onto another worldFree
- 2A lit land below the earth
- 3Vril, the force that runs everything
- 4A peaceful society with no struggle
- 5Strange customs, women and the question of love
- 6Learning the language and the limits of the guest
- 7What the story says about progress
- 8How the tale is told
Key point 1 of 8
A mine shaft opens onto another world
The narrator is a young traveller from the United States. He tells us he is writing for readers after his own time, and he keeps his name and some details hidden. He visits a great mine, guided by a friendly engineer who is an old acquaintance.
The engineer has found a chasm that leads far below the working galleries. Curious, the two men climb down by rope to explore it. The engineer goes first, and the narrator follows in a spirit of adventure.
Something goes wrong in the depths. The engineer does not return as expected, and the narrator is left alone in a strange place that is not like any mine he knows.
This opening matters because it sets the tone. Bulwer-Lytton uses the plain voice of a travel writer to make a wild tale feel like a report. The reader is asked to accept the impossible because the narrator sounds so calm about it.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why has war become almost impossible among the underground people?
Right. “For that reason, war has become almost impossible among them, since any side could wipe out the other.”Not quite. “For that reason, war has become almost impossible among them, since any side could wipe out the other.”
What troubles the narrator about a society without struggle?
Right. “With no struggle, there seems little hope, little ambition and little of the passion that drives surface life.”Not quite. “With no struggle, there seems little hope, little ambition and little of the passion that drives surface life.”
Why do some underground people regard the narrator as a possible danger?
Right. “Surface humans, they say, are an unruly and quarrelsome kind.”Not quite. “Surface humans, they say, are an unruly and quarrelsome kind.”
Who’s who
- The narrator
- A curious young American traveller becomes a guest among underground people whose powers far exceed those of his own society.
- The engineer
- A mining engineer and friend of the narrator guides him into the chasm where their strange adventure begins.
- The first underground host
- A tall, calm inhabitant of the underground world receives the narrator and introduces him to its unfamiliar society.
- The young woman of the house
- The daughter of the narrator's host teaches him her people's customs and takes a growing personal interest in him.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 53,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 3 h 35 min
- Listening time5 h 55 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
