[Ads-l] Fw: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction" Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?

[Dan Goncharoff]

Is this the first use of a different meaning of "science fiction", the
disparagement of a new theory that is overwhelmingly rejected by the
scientific consensus?

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:07 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> This doesn't seem to be the modern usage of "science-fiction," but it's
> weirdly kind of in the same ballpark, maybe a Republican vision of science
> fiction (conflating Darwin with "Planet of the Apes").  Fascinating
> discovery, Peter !
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Peter Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 9:57 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
>
> An earlier example of "science-fiction book" from 1894, in a poem about
> the origin of language, with reference to Darwin's Origin of the Species.
>
>
> https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers.com%2Fclip%2F55261042%2Fweekly-herald%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C10a8b6643be64e6945b108d82734b520%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637302454620005948&sdata=Wp%2FNrkCgSQtJ17b2m0lVBL6LW5di%2FOMO8AfAgG2xgms%3D&reserved=0
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> >
>
> "So went it on for countless ages:
> No neater form expression took:
> Is it not written in the pages
> Of Darwin's science-fiction book?"
>
> Weekly Herald (Calgary, Alberta), February 2, 1894, page 1.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 4:39:38 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science
> Fiction"
>               Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Does that make Etidorhpa nominally the first science fiction novel? I read
> that in high school around 1980.
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 08:01 Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> >               Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I am just curious about something.  Maybe Jeffrey Prucher or someone else
> > c=
> > an help me.  It seems to me that an 1897 citation in the OED is the
> > earlies=
> > t known example of the modern usage of the term "science fiction," 30
> > years=
> >  before Gernsback:
> >
> > 1897   H. B. Mason in Pharmaceut. World 20 May 592/1   My last
> remembrance
> > =
> > had been of reading Mr. [J. U.] Lloyd's Etidorhpa... The complete arrest
> > of=
> >  bodily function and tissue waste which the central figure of that
> > remarkab=
> > le science-fiction achieved at the point where gravitation ceases,
> > somewher=
> > e between here and China, impressed me deeply.
> >
> > Have science fiction historians or scholars picked up on this important
> > cit=
> > ation?  It is referring to an individual instance of science fiction
> > writin=
> > g rather than the genre as a whole, but the usage is essentially the same
> > a=
> > s the modern one.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
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