[Ads-l] Antedating of "Dystopia"

James Eric Lawson jel at NVENTURE.COM
Thu Oct 27 20:36:22 UTC 2022


1748, verse in an epistle datelined March 2, Dublin, _The gentleman's
magazine_, Vol. 18, 400/1 (the § is glossed below the column as "an
unhappy country"):

Unhappy isle! scarce known to fame;
DYSTOPIA § was its slighted name.
...
To mortals, STANHOPE he appears,
Come to dry up *Dystopia*'s tears.

Op. cit. 401/2 (where ॥ is glossed as "The *Romanists*"):

Reflect--in *Saturn*'s days and mine,
When rebel *Titans* ॥ dar'd combine;
And with repeated, impious arms,
Shook heaven's throne [with] loud alarms:
*Dystopia* own'd that shaking throne,
And made our royal cause her own.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076879335&view=1up&seq=446&q1=dystopia


Mention should also be made of the technical term used in medicine at
least as early as 1878, in _The Dublin journal of medical science_ p265,
then through the remainder of the 19th and into the 20th centuries:

Congenital Misplacement (Dystopia) of the Right Kidney.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015047000982&view=1up&seq=293&q1=dystopia



On 10/25/22 14:59, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> Jesse's wonderful Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction has two
> senses for the noun dystopia. The July 23, 1919 citation may fit sense
> 1: a work set in a dystopia.
> 
> https://sfdictionary.com/view/2228/dystopia
> https://sfdictionary.com/view/159/dystopia

> 
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 5:38 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Congratulations on your impressive antedating, Fred. Following your
>> lead, here is a citation a few months earlier in Plymouth, England.
>>
>> Date: July 23, 1919
>> Newspaper: The Western Morning News
>> Newspaper Location: Plymouth, Devon, England
>> Article: New or Recent Books
>> Quote Page 2, Column 7
>> Database: Newspapers.com
>> https://www.newspapers.com/image/816090475/?terms=dystopia&match=1
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> ANYMOON. By Horace Bleakley. (John Lane, 7s net.)--Whether Mr.
>> Bleakley is a prophet in his own country or wishes to be regarded as
>> one is not very evident. He may not take his dystopia, if one may call
>> it so, any more seriously than Sir Thomas More took his provision of
>> the ideal future state.
>> [End excerpt]

>>
>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 6:56 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> dystopia (OED 1952)
>>>
>>> 1919 _N.Y. Times_ 19 Dec. 14/3 (Newspapers.com)  Under the august reign of Mr. TOWNLEY North Dakota has no use for such a guarantee or such a government.  For the moment it belongs to Utopia or Dystopia rather than these United States.

-- 
James Eric Lawson

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