The Coming Race is a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published anonymously in 1871. It has also been published as Vril, the Power of the Coming Race. Some readers have believed the account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril", at least in part; some theosophists, notably Helena Blavatsky, William Scott-Elliot, and Rudolf Steiner, accepted the book as based on occult truth, in part. One 1960 book, The Morning of the Magicians by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels, suggested that a secret Vril Society existed in Weimar Berlin. History The original, British edition of The Coming Race was published anonymously in May 1871, by Blackwood and Sons of Edinburgh and London. (Blackwood published four more "editions" in 1871.) Anonymous American and Canadian editions were published in August, as The Coming Race, or The New Utopia, by Francis B. Felt & Co. in New York and by Copp, Clark & Co. in Toronto. Late in 1871 Bulwer-Lytton was known to be the author. Erewhon, which was also published anonymously in March 1872, was initially assumed to be a Coming Race sequel by Bulwer-Lytton. When it was revealed that Samuel Butler was the writer in the 25 May 1872 issue of the Athenaeum; sales dropped by 90 percent. Plot summary The novel centres on a young, independent, unnamed, wealthy traveller (the narrator), who visits a friend, a mining engineer. They explore a natural chasm in a mine which has been exposed by an exploratory shaft. The narrator reaches the bottom of the chasm safely, but the rope breaks and his friend is killed. The narrator finds his way into a subterranean world occupied by beings who seem to resemble angels. He befriends the first being he meets, who guides him around a city that is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian architecture. The explorer meets his host's wife, two sons and daughter who learn to speak English by way of a makeshift dictionary during which the narrator unconsciously teaches them the language. His guide comes towards him, and he and his daughter, Zee, explain who they are and how they function. The hero discovers that these beings, who call themselves Vril-ya, have great telepathic and other parapsychological abilities, such as being able to transmit information, get rid of pain, and put others to sleep. The narrator is offended by the idea that the Vril-ya are better adapted to learn about him