Steampunk Insect

Several works of fiction significant to the development of the genre were produced before the genre had a name. Titus Alone (1959), by Mervyn Peake, anticipated many of the tropes of steampunk. One of the earliest mainstream manifestations of the steampunk ethos was the original CBS television series The Wild Wild West (1965–69), which inspired the film Wild Wild West (1999). The film Brazil (1985) was an important early cinematic influence to the genre.
Because he coined the term, K.W. Jeter's novel Morlock Night (1979) is typically considered to have established the genre. Keith Laumer made an early contribution with Worlds of the Imperium (1962). Ronald W. Clark's Queen Victoria's Bomb (1967) and Michael Moorcock's Warlord of the Air (1971) have been cited as early influences. Harry Harrison's novel A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (1973) portrays a British Empire of an alternate 1973, full of atomic locomotives, coal-powered flying boats, ornate submarines, and Victorian dialogue. In February 1980 Richard A. Lupoff and Steve Stiles published the first "chapter" of their 10-part comic strip The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer.
1988 saw the publication of the first version of the science fiction roleplaying game Space: 1889, set in an alternate history in which certain discredited Victorian scientific theories were instead provable and have led to the existence of new technologies. Contributing authors included Frank Chadwick, Loren Wiseman, and Marcus Rowland.