Underground man (Classics of science fiction)

Gabriel de Tarde (1843-1904) was a French sociologist who wrote the post-apocalyptic book, Underground Man (Fragment d'Histoire Future, 1896) to popularized some of his philosophical ideas. In the book, the Earth freezes from a dying sun, and the fragments of mankind burrow underground to survive in the warmth provided by the Earth's core. This philosophical book sketches the future history of the earth and makes minimal concessions to plot or characterization, but its view of mankind's fate is fascinating and thoughtful, if unscientific. Curiously it echoes the rejection of Nature prevalent among schools of thought in the 1890s. Preface by H.G. Wells and translated from the French by Cloudesley Brereton (1905).