Hollow Earth - in Fiction

In Fiction

The idea of a hollow Earth is a common element of fiction, appearing as early as Ludvig Holberg's 1741 novel Nicolai Klimii iter subterraneum (Niels Klim's Underground Travels), in which Nicolai Klim falls through a cave while spelunking and spends several years living on a smaller globe both within and the inside of the outer shell.

Other notable pre-20th century examples include Giacomo Casanova's 1788 Icosaméron, a 5-volume, 1,800-page story of a brother and sister who fall into the Earth and discover the subterranean utopia of the Mégamicres, a race of multicolored, hermaphroditic dwarfs; Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by a "Captain Adam Seaborn" (1820) which reflected the ideas of John Cleves Symmes, Jr.; Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket; Jules Verne's 1864 novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth, which described a prehistoric subterranean world; and George Sand's 1884 novel Laura, Voyage dans le Cristal where unseen and giant crystals could be found in the interior of the Earth.

The idea was used by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, in the seven-novel "Pellucidar" series, beginning with At the Earth's Core (1914). Using a mechanical drill, his heroes discover a prehistoric world, called Pellucidar, 500 miles below the surface, that is lit by an inner sun. The 1915 novel Plutonia by Vladimir Obruchev uses the concept of the hollow Earth to take the reader through various geological epochs.

In more recent decades, the idea has become a staple of the science fiction and adventure genres, appearing in print, in film, on television, in comics, in role-playing games, and in many animated works.