Note: Based on a 1934 University of North Carolina dissertation, presented as: Scientific Fiction in English, 1817-1914: A Study of Trends and Forms (Thesis Ph.D.). The title of this book is the basis for the Pilgrim Award, given by the Science Fiction Research Association for contributions to the study of SF, first given to Bailey.

Synopsis: From the back cover of the Argus first edition: "Pilgrims Through Space and Time is a first, trail-blazing historical and analytical study of scientific fiction and the utopian and scientific romances that describe a world remade by science. It makes clear that this fiction forms a solid tradition, book upon book - many pieces, like Gulliver's Travels, famous as isolated novels. Showing that these peaks belong to a range of many hills and foothills, it analyzes the shape of the range: similarities in the way the stories are told, in the substance of the stories, in the imaginary inventions they describe, and in the creeds of the authors. That the range exists and how it is shaped is most important to the scholar in Academia for here is unexplored terrain. The analysis of creeds may be most stimulating to the thoughtful reader. Vigorous, original, imaginative men seriously concerned to understand and interpret the meaning of science and the machine in human life have used scientific romances to state their boldest speculations. While their stories have entertained some millions of youngsters in their teens, and a similar number, perhaps, of their elders, and prepared these readers to face with some thoughtfulness the world of the Machine Age, the message of these books has undoubtedly been a tremendous force in moulding the modern mind. In outline, at least, Pilgrims for the first time studies the historical development, the story-pattern, and the ideas of scientific fiction."