Bulwer-Lytton is legend nowadays for the qualities of his prose: but we find his prose attractive, in its languid way, and certainly the man was a profound thinker. "Vril" is a mysterious energy used by Lytton's subterranean race -- refugees from the deluge that submerged Atlantis -- to power their advanced civilization. Generations of occultists have mistaken this bit of business for something other than fiction, and still more generations of science fiction writers have recycled the novel's plot. Vril is a book of strong interest to anyone doing a scholarly study of the evolution of SF, it's also a novel well worth reading in its own right.(Jacketless library hardcover.)