The idea of a hollow Earth is a very common element of fiction, appearing as early as Ludvig Holberg’s 1741 novel Nicolai Klimii iter subterraneum (Niels Klim’s Underground Travels), in which Nicolai Klim falls through a cave while spelunking and spends several years living on both a smaller globe within and the inside of the outer shell.
Other pre-20th century examples include Giacomo Casanova’s 1788 Icosameron, a 5-volume, 1,800-page story of a brother and sister who fall into the Earth and discover the subterranean utopia of the Megamicres, a race of multicolored, hermaphroditic dwarfs; Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by a “Captain Adam Seaborn” (1820) which reflected the ideas of John Cleves Symmes, Jr. and some have claimed Symmes as the real author; Edgar Allan Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket; and George Sand’s 1884 novel Laura, Voyage dans le Cristal where unseen and giant crystals could be found in the interior of the Earth.
More recently, the idea has become a staple of science fiction, appearing in print, in film, on television, in comics, role-playing games, and in many animated works.
The idea as also used by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, in a series of novels beginning with “At the Earth’s Core” (1914). Using a mechanical drill, his heroes discover a prehistoric world 500 miles below the surface. Lit by an inner sun, this inner earth is called “Pellucidar” due to the constant light of the unsetting inner sun. There is also an inner moon which creates a “Land of the Dreadful Shadow” by blocking the light of the inner sun for a portion of Pellucidar. Burroughs also makes use of the idea of openings at the poles, and has zeppelins travel to the interior of the earth via these openings. There are seven novels in the “Pellucidar”series.
