Extraordinary voyages, fantastic inventions, and challenging questions about technology, race, gender, the future, and the meaning of the United States of America. The period between the Civil War and the Great War ? dubbed the ?Gilded Age? by Mark Twain ? was the crucible of modern America and few genres were as suited to grapple with its troubles and opportunities as speculative fiction. This volume features rarely reprinted stories by such authors as Mark Twain and fellow humorist Ellis Parker Butler, pioneering feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman, African American activist Sutton E. Griggs, science writer Garrett P. Serviss (the Neil deGrasse Tyson of his day), Jack London, dime novelist Edward S. Ellis, and John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man to die aboard the Titanic. "Science Fiction of America's Gilded Age" also includes a new introduction by editor C.W. Gross, creator and writer of "Voyages Extraordinaires: Scientific Romances in a Bygone Age," (http://voyagesextraordinaires.blogspot.com/) the preeminent weblog dedicated to Victorian-Edwardian science fiction, horror, fantasy, history, and retro-futurism.