First published in 1905, the book, which is a science fiction novel that combines science and imagination together, is the author's most popular work. It is hailed as the most influential sci-fi novel in the 20th century, which pose great influence to sci-fi novels of later times. The novel is obviously a literary ancestor of many other sci-fi novels and always considered as a pioneer work of the sci-fi field.

Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation is an escapist novel by Edwin Lester Arnold combining elements of both fantasy and science fiction, first published in 1905. The last of Arnold's novels, its lukewarm reception led him to stop writing fiction. It has since become his best known work, and is considered important in the development of 20th century science fiction in that it is a precursor and likely inspiration to Edgar Rice Burroughs's classic A Princess of Mars (1911), which spawned the sword and planet genre.

Edwin Lester Linden Arnold (1857 – 1 March 1935) was an English author. Most of his works were issued under his working name of Edwin Lester Arnold.

Arnold was born in Swanscombe, Kent, as son of Sir Edwin Arnold. Most of his childhood was spent in India, but he returned to England to study agriculture and ornithology. He became a journalist in 1883, and published his first books A Summer Holiday In Scandinavia (1877) and Bird Life In England (1887) before writing his first novel The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician, the adventures of a warrior who goes in and out of an unexplained state of suspended animation in order to be a witness to invasions or attempted invasions of England. Phra was first published in 24 parts in the prestigious Illustrated London News, and later published in book form in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Arnold later wrote other novels, including Rutherford the Twice-Born (1892) and Lepidus the Centurion: A Roman of Today (1901), both of which flopped commercially. In 1905 Arnold published his best known novel, Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, also known as Gulliver of Mars, (1905). Its initial reception was lukewarm, leading Arnold to stop writing fiction altogether.