Steampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction which came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in (or strongly inspired by—see fantasy-world steampunk below) an era when steam power was still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.