The Battle of Dorking (Fantasy and Horror Classics), (Paperback)

From the mind of Sir George Tomkyns Chesney (G. T. Chesney), a distinguished British military officer, comes a pioneering and explosively influential work of speculative fiction that created a national panic.

The Battle of Dorking was first published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine in 1871, terrifying Victorian Britain. Written in the form of a memoir from a survivor fifty years after the event, the story narrates the shocking, fictional invasion of England by a superior foreign power (implied to be Germany). The memoir recounts the complete and utter defeat of the unprepared British forces in a disastrous battle fought near the town of Dorking. Chesney wrote the tale as a stark, urgent warning against Britain's complacency, its lack of military preparedness, and its over-reliance on the Royal Navy.

This short novel is a foundational work of Invasion Literature, a key progenitor of modern Warfare Fiction, and a chilling classic of early speculative horror. It is essential reading for fans of Victorian fiction and works that use fear of the future to critique the present.