Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it is the British Library’s first exhibition to explore the genre of science fiction through literature, film, illustration and sound.

The exhibition will trace how science fiction has turned from a niche pursuit into a global phenomenon through various displays exploring alien worlds, future worlds, parallel worlds and the end of the world.

Highlights of the exhibition include Lucian of Samasota's True History, a 2nd Century work described as "the first known text that could be called science fiction". The story follows a group of adventurers who visit a number of fantastical lands and end up on the Moon.

It also features a manuscript of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1871 story The Coming Race. The drink Bovril derived its name from the story, in which the narrator accidentally finds his way into a subterranean world occupied by advanced beings.

In 1983 Italian artist and designer Luigi Serafini produced Codex Seraphinianus - an encyclopaedia of an imaginary world, written in an imaginary language which has yet to be deciphered.

A series of events will accompany the exhibit featuring a host of science fiction writers. These include Iain M Banks, Brian Aldiss and Michael Moorcock.