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Shop nowMetropolis
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Learn moreThis remarkable novel, the basis for the world's greatest science-fiction movie, has long been a rare but ardently sought-after collector's item. It is an unforgettable vision of the 21st century and the awe-inspiring city of the future. Metropolis has been compared to such classics as George Orwell's 1984, H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, Samuel Butler's Erewhon, and Karel Capek's R.U.R. Science fiction writer and editor Forrest J Ackerman called it "a work of genius," noting, "The language of the novel is sometimes as thesauric as Shiel, as kaliedoscopic as Merritt, as bone-spare as Bradbury, as poetic as Poe, as macabre as Machen. . . . You will have an experience in reading that will last you all the rest of your life."
Thea von Harbou (1888 to 1954) was a prolific German author and screenwriter. She published over forty books, including novels, childrens' books, and collections of short stories, poems, and essays. She also wrote or collaborated on the screenplays for somewhere around seventy full-length motion pictures in the silent and sound era. Her best known film is the science-fiction epic "Metropolis" (1927), for which she wrote the screenplay. Ironically, her novel based on that screenplay is also her best-known book. Only now are some of her other works, such as "The Indian Tomb" beginning to become available in English,
Although von Harbou was at home in many different forms and genres, the typical von Harbou heroine is a strong-willed, independent woman often called upon to rescue and redeem the men in her life.
She was married three times: actor Rudolph Klein-Rogge (who played leading roles in many of her films), director Fritz Lang (whose celebrated silent films were all written by her), and journalist and Indian patriot Ayi Tendulkar. Not exactly a feminist, she nevertheless achieved great success in the male-dominated German film industry, and at one point, she is reputed to have been the highest-paid screenwriter in Germany.