These thirteen original essays were written specifically for the Third J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, held February 21–22, 1981, at the University of California, Riverside.

Leslie Fiedler sets the tone of this volume by fixing a basic set of coordinates—that of “elitist” and “popular” standards.

Those replying to his charge are: Eric S. Rabkin, Professor of English at the Univer­sity of Michigan and author of The Fantasticin Literature, “The Descent of Fantasy”; Gerald Prince, Professor of French at the University of Pennsylvania, “How New is New?”; Mark Rose, Professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, author of Alien Encounters, “Jules Verne: Journey to the Cen­ter of Science Fiction”; Joseph Lenz, who teaches English Literature at the University of Michigan, “Manifest Destiny: Science Fic­tion Epic and Classical Forms”; Michelle Massé, of the English Department at the George Mason University, “‘All you have to do is know what you want’: Individual Ex­pectations in Triton”;Gary K. Wolfe, who teaches English at Roosevelt University, au­thor of The Known and the Unknown, “Autoplastic and Alloplastic Adaptations in Science Fiction: ‘Waldo’ and ‘Desertion’”; Robert Hunt, an editor with Glencoe Press, “Sci­ence Fiction for the Age of Inflation: Reading Atlas Shrugged in the 1980s”; George R. Guffey, Professor of English at UCLA, “Fahr­enheit 451and the ‘Cubby-Hole Editors’ of Ballantine Books”; H. Bruce Franklin, Pro­fessor of English and American Literature at Rutgers University at Newark, “America as Science Fiction: 1939”; Sandra M. Gilbert, Professor of English at the University of Cal­ifornia at Davis, and coauthor with Susan Gubar of Madwoman in the Attic, “Rider Hag­gard’s Heart of Darkness”; the aforemen­tioned Susan Gubar, Professor of English at Indiana University, “She in Her/and: Femi­nism as Fantasy”; and George R. Slusser, Cu­rator of the Eaton Collection, “Death and the Mirror: Existential Fantasy.”