There are countless Sci-Fi works featuring Virtual Reality (Definition: A computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person). The Matrix, Tron, Neuromancer are great examples.
Which Sci-Fi work introduced this idea?
Answer
1930: "The City of the Living Dead" by Laurence Manning and Fletcher Pratt; originally published in Science Wonder Stories, May 1930 (available at the Internet Archive, click here for download options), reprinted in Startling Stories, July 1940, in Avon Fantasy Reader, No. 2, 1947 (also at the Internet Archive, click here for download options), and in The 2nd Avon Fantasy Reader. From the review by Everett F. Bleiler in Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years:
Short story. * Time: around A.D. 4500. Place: exact location not clear, but the people concerned seem to be Scandinavians. Their land is near the ancient country of the Anglesk, but is isolated by a new mountain that has risen, blocking entrance. * In the land of Alvrosdale, the culture is not barbaric, but mechanical civilization has died, and machines are regarded with horror and aversion. Since the land is small and overpopulation is a problem, each year, on a certain day, a number of the more adventurous young people take artificial wings and try to fly over the mountain to the fair, but deeserted lands of the Anglesk on the other side. Quite a few die along the way. * The chief elder, Hal Hallstrom, tells candidates of his experience when he was young. There were no wings then, and he climbed the nearly unpassable mountain and descended with great difficulty and peril. (He seems to have been the first to do so.) * He found a green, pleasant land with many ruins, some filled with elaborate, decayed machinery, but never a living soul. Eventually he saw a light, and, entering a building, found many corpses covered almost completely with wires. To his horror, some were alive, though almost motionless. He then encountered an ancient man, who was ambulatory, but was covered with wires. * The ancient man, applying a thought helmet to Hal, taught him the language and told him what was going on. Over the centuries, the English became more and more jaded, abandoning actual life for synthetic thrills like radio, motion pictures, and television. Thus, when a medical breakthrough provided artificial sensory organs, the next step was programmed adventures, at first realistic, but then wish-fulfillment exploits for the individual. There were enormous libraries of such artificial lives. The individual, his sensory organs removed, was hooked up to dream machines and provided with mechanical artificial sustenance. Life was thus abandoned for the illusion. It is the old man's task to care for the dreamers, who never emerge from the machines, but since the task is overwhelming, * The old man, who was not totally wired, would like to see Hal's land and showed Hal how to make artificial wings. They flew toward Alvrosdale, but the old man died along the way, and Hal returned alone with the secret of the wings, which are apparently gliders. * Pratt's writing mannerisms are sometimes annoying, but the story does hold one's attention. Manning's later treatment of the same theme in "The Man Who Awoke" is superior.
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