William Edward Burghardt—W. E. B.—Du Bois (1868–1963) was a scientist, writer, and activist who helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As an advocate of Pan-Africanism, Du Bois was essential to the Pan-African Congresses of his day, which sought to remove European powers from African nations. He also worked tirelessly against racism in society and embedded in the law.
Although primarily known as a writer of nonfiction, including his influential essay collection The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois also wrote fiction, often of a fantastical and allegorical nature. This fiction was influenced by his views on religion, spirituality, and race relations. It has only recently become clear just how much fiction Du Bois wrote, and how much of it was speculative in nature. A collection of Du Bois’s short fiction is in the works, and unpublished stories still occasionally come to light, including “The Princess Steel,” which, according to an article by Jane Greenway Carr posted to Slate.com (December 1, 2015), was written between 1908 and 1910. This new story, which helps to enhance our understanding of Afrofuturism, features a black sociologist who demonstrates for a honeymooning couple a “megascope, a machine he created to see across time and space.” The story views technology through the lens of race and gender.
The classic story “The Comet” from 1920, reprinted here, was originally included in his volume of autobiography, Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, and later reprinted in the 2000 anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. Like “The Princess Steel,” the story presents a rare early nonwhite science fiction perspective. How influential was “The Comet” when first published? Although it is difficult to tell, we doubt Du Bois’s work would have been well known within the closed, tight-knit science fiction pulp magazine community.