While E.E. Smith and Edmond Hamilton are known as the inventors of space opera, its roots can be traced back to 'Inferno' and 'Paradise Lost'; illustrations to both poems (William Blake, John Martin) were a landmark in fantasy art. Late XIX century mysticism, feeding on modern science, further extended the limits of imagination beyond the written history of the humanity and the bounds of the Solar System. Bonus content: Max Voloshin's sonnet crowns, 'Corona Astralis' and 'Lunaria', translated.