Genesis and comparison between science fiction literature and the retro futuristic elements of Steampunk, with particular attention to contemporary literary and television reinterpretations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes, and the dystopian trend of cinema in recent years. A new literary and cinematographic genre inspired by Victorian London of second Industrial Revolution, which also links its literary origins to Twain’s America. An era, that of Queen Victoria, in which, thanks to a series of inventions and discoveries – from Watt’s steam engine to Tesla’s alternating current -, everyday life is literally turned upside down. An epoch that suddenly projects society into the world like we know it today. An inner uneasiness that gives birth to gothic genre, Poe’s literary doubles, the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes, Hyde’s restlessness, and Dickens’ social novel. Last, but not least, a time in which you could see side by side technology and so called freak phenomena in the pavilions of the first Universal Exposition: above all, The Elephant Man. From H.G. Wells‘ tales to Jack the Ripper: who are, then, the New Victorians? They are modern writers, taking a journey through time. They immerse themselves in this suggestive and contradictory atmosphere, creating stories set in alleys enveloped by the steam and smoke of the factories, sometimes imagining to meet real inventors of that time; but, while science fiction uses time machine to investigate the future and anticipate it, the Steampunk writers instead, offer a retro futurist look, and they start from an assumption: what if? What would have happened if the industrial revolution had never occurred?

Among the films analyzed, Hugo Cabret, a modern Oliver Twist inspired by Selznick’s book, it is a tribute to the phantasmagoria of Méliès; Back to the Future Saga, The Prestige, The War of the Worlds, just to mention a few. Numerous tv series were also considered: Sherlock, Elementary, Victoria, Dickensian and The Man in the High Castle, plus a chapter dedicated to animation, deepening masterpieces such as Captain Harlock, Steamboy, Howl’s Moving Castle and many others.

A triumph of automata, clocks, gears, inventions and alternative reality. A theme that, thanks to enthusiasts and cosplayers, has also extended into fashion, and that has been able to break through modern literature responding to the rigid canons inherited from Structuralism.

Between hypothesis, fantasy, anachronism, progress and a pinch of dystopia, welcome to a world where everything is possible!

Essay, Nero Press Edizioni, Rome 2018. P.P. 218.