"science fiction"

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 11:21:49AM -0500, James A. Landau wrote:
>
> Also, I find it surprising that M-W 10th Collegiate dates "science fiction"
> as 1851.

OED has several quotes from an 1851 source. It does call this an
"isolated use".

The OED's SF project has found a 1927 interdating, by the way.
Mentioned at http://www.jessesword.com/SF/sf_crit.shtml

Jesse Sheidlower