First published in 1895, The Crack of Doom stands among the earliest novels to imagine the terrifying power sleeping inside the atom. When a young traveler is shipwrecked on a remote island, he stumbles upon a hidden laboratory where a brilliant recluse has discovered how to release the immense energy bound within matter — a secret that could light the world or end it. As the castaway is drawn into the scientist's confidence, Cromie poses a question that has only grown more urgent with time: what should humanity do with knowledge too dangerous to use? This edition presents the complete, unabridged original text, faithfully reproduced, together with a new introduction exploring Cromie's life, his place in early science fiction, and the novel's remarkable anticipation of the atomic age, plus reader's notes illuminating the scientific and literary references of the period. Part of The Founding Texts Library.