The Hampdenshire Wonder

Author: J. D. Beresford

This was the first novel to fully explore the consequences of the birth of homo superior. Victor Stott is born weak and awkward, with an enlarged head, and at first, because he doesn't speak or cry, he is assumed to be an idiot. But slowly we come to realise that he has an incredibly powerful intellect. He can absorb vast amounts of information and use it to synthesise new ideas at great speed. Soon he is leaving the greatest minds of the day in his wake. But there are social problems resulting from his genius. He is disabled, not the strapping sportsman his father wanted. A child born a hydrocephalic idiot sees Victor as his fellow and latches on to him, though he alone is immune to Victor's mind control. Moreover, Victor's genius leads him to reject religion, which puts him at odds with the local clergyman who had started out helping to educate Victor. The end result is an inevitable tragedy. Why it's on the list: Victor himself is a cold character, not prone to making emotional connections to people, but Beresford's story is warm and thoughtful and very carefully structured. It is all the more convincing for being unsensational, and it clearly paves the way for such later novels as Odd John by Olaf Stapledon and Slan by A.E. Van Vogt.