Utopian novels of the early period
After doing some background research for my interactive fiction story, Harmonia, I became fascinated with some of the earliest works of science fiction: the utopian fiction of the 19th century. I’m especially interested in those books by women and other underrepresented writers, as these fictional works tend to describe the world as people wished it to be.
Each one of these pieces contains original biographical research on the authors.
Her stories
A survey of early utopian and dystopian works by woman, from the period between 1850 and the early 20th century.
Arqtiq (1899)
I went deep into the biography of an obscure author of this period: Anna Adolph, her novel Arqtiq, and a uniquely American personal history.
Unveiling a Parallel (1893)
An exuberantly feminist and sex-positive utopian novel by Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella Robinson Merchant, one an experienced author, the other a business leader and independent spirit.
Etidorhpa (1895)
A triumph of the hollow earth genre, Etidorhpa by John Uri Lloyd takes the reader on a hallucinogenic journey with instantly memorable illustrations.
Journeys to the Planet Mars (1903)
Journeys
to the Planet Mars is a deeply-felt hoax (?) by spiritualist
Sara Weiss, who wrote and illustrated it under the direction of “spirit
guides.”
In 2023 I wrote an interactive fiction piece, The
ecology of the waterways of Mars, based on her cosmology.
The Ostrich for the Defence (1912)
The Ostrich for the Defence was William Hile’s novel-length advertisement for a doomed venture to achieve world peace through ostrich farming.
Freeland: A Social Anticipation (1889)
After Austrian economist Theodor Hertzka published the immensely popular Freeland, he took a disastrous next step: attempting to realize his utopian plan. In Kenya, a hapless mob of dissolute European ne’er-do-wells undertake a reckless affair that would end in shame, despair, and violence.
Loma: A Citizen of Venus (1897)
A clairvoyant being from Venus saves the young mother of the messiah and preaches values of free love and eugenics. “Doctor” William Windsor wrote Loma to capitalize on the utopian novel trend and use it to sell phrenology, quack science, and curiously modern gender politics.
Young West: A Sequel to Looking Backward (1894 )
Solomon Schindler, a radical Reform rabbi in Boston, authored this surprisingly good sequel to Edward Bellamy’s classic utopian novel, printed in a uniquely colorful series of editions.