Metropolis (novel)

Metropolis is a science fiction novel by the German writer Thea von Harbou, serialized in the magazine Illustriertes Blatt in 1925 and published in book form in 1926, with an English translation following in 1927. Von Harbou developed it alongside her husband, the director Fritz Lang, beginning in 1924, as the source material and treatment for Lang's celebrated 1927 film of the same name. The novel is set in a towering, technologically advanced city divided sharply between a wealthy ruling class living in luxury above ground and an exploited laboring class toiling in the machine-halls beneath it, and centers on Freder, the son of the city's ruler Joh Frederson, who falls in love with Maria, a woman from the workers' underground community, and whose growing awareness of the workers' suffering sets him on a collision course with his own father as tensions between the two classes threaten to erupt into open revolt. Although Lang's film, made from von Harbou's own script, omits or alters many elements of the novel, including much of its occult symbolism and some characters' motivations, and further material was cut from the film after its release, with some of it permanently lost, the novel itself stands as a distinct and less-read work exploring the same divided city and the question of whether reconciliation between its classes is possible.