Originally published circa 1867, Darius Green and his Flying-Machine by John Townsend Trowbridge, was a simple verse mocking the aspiration towards human-powered flight, the genre of Scientific Romances, and the boy geniuses who populated such stories in the dime novels of the day. For example, The Huge Hunter; or, The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis would be published in 1868, featuring a comparable boy genius though with somewhat more success than the country bumpkin of Trowbridge's poem.
