The destruction of the great city, 1903. Photomechanical reproduction of a pen and ink drawing. Apocalyptic science romance typically focussed on the ruin of London and the Home Counties, a strategy that stressed the attack as being on the very heart of Englishness. Hartmann’s felling of Big Ben must have shocked the original audience, and Jane visualizes the event in bluntly dramatic terms, showing the collapse in freeze-frame. Such imagery is a prototype for the cinematic treatment of urban destruction in numerous science fiction films
Related Material
Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke. You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.
Bibliography
Fawcett, E. Doulgas. Hartmann the Anarchist; or, the Doom of a Great City. Illustrated by Fred Jane. London: Edward Arnold, 1893. [online edition, Project Gutenberg].
Created 16 March 2026