Niels Klim's Underground Travels - Influence

Influence

• Holberg knew that the satirical content of the novel would cause an uproar in Denmark-Norway, so the book was first published in Germany, in Latin. He thus got a broader audience than he would have gotten in his homeland. The novel made him widely acclaimed across Europe. Danish, German, French, and Dutch translations were also published in 1741.
• The book is significant in the history of science fiction, being one of the first science-fiction novels in history along with Johannes Kepler's Somnium (The Dream, 1634), Cyrano de Bergerac's Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1656), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), and Voltaire's Micromégas (1752). Along with a number of those stories, an excerpt was included in the anthology The Road to Science Fiction, Volume 1: From Gilgamesh to Wells.
• The work is referenced in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher".
• It is one of the first science fiction novels to use the Hollow Earth concept.
• The renowned Danish Communist author and artist Hans Scherfig created a graphic retelling of "Niels Klims underjordiske rejse", which was originally published in the Danish newspaper Land og folk from 3 July 1955 to 21 January 1956 and later as a book at Sirius Publishing House, Risskov, Denmark in October 1961.

• The story was adapted to a costly 3 episode TV-series for The Danish Broadcasting Coorporation in 1984, starring actor Frits Helmuth in the titlerole.