The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

I'd just like to know peoples ideas for moving forward. Last time round we read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein then read two very important authors of early sci-fi, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Both these authors are quite prolific so there would no problem to repeat this. My knowledge of early sci-fi is quite limited so i'm not sure if there is anything else we should include this time round. Do we want to read both these authors and then have a general category of 1850's to 1900 to cover other authors at this time?

Wikipedia has a nice essay on early/proto-science fiction: History of Science Fiction.

Personally, I would be happy to start with Verne and Wells and then move on to the 1900s, as I have no good ideas for other authors from the 19th C. But perhaps someone else does?

I have recently bought both Journey To The Centre Of The Earth by Verne and Food of The Gods by Wells. I'd love an excuse to start reading them! Someone also bought me a nice edition of Frankenstein for Christmas but I I'm not in too much of a rush as I have read it before.

In regards to early 19th century science fiction writers, Olaf Stapledon is fairly iconic one with his book "Star Maker". Though he is late 19th century/early 20th.

Joel wrote: "In regards to early 19th century science fiction writers, Olaf Stapledon is fairly iconic one with his book "Star Maker". Though he is late 19th century/early 20th."

I love Olaf Stapledon, but his books are from the 1930s-1950s. Star Maker was published in 1937 for instance.

I don't have a problem starting with Verne and Wells; I have one of each on my library list. And this time I hope we can get in some Stapledon and Van Vogt, neither of which I've read.

I've been reading from Locus Best SF Novels of All-Time: https://www.worldswithoutend.com/list...

"Locus Magazine's annual poll periodically includes 'all-time best' categories for novel or author. The Best SF Novel of All-Time poll was last held in 1998 and was restricted to books published before 1990."

I've read all but a small handful of these. It's a good list; 53 good SF book before 1990. I'm currently reading Heinlein's Double Star.

Thanks everyone so Jules Verne will be next.

Andreas posted this link in another thread which is for the early sci-fi period. This gives some other ideas for what to read.
http://io9.com/tag/victorian-hugos

Thanks for the link! Jess Nevins is familiar to me because he writes a lot of the back matter articles for Ed Brubaker's comic books like Criminal. This guy must be 1000 years old because he seems to have read virtually everything.