[Ads-l] Antedating of "Dystopia"

James Eric Lawson jel at NVENTURE.COM
Fri Oct 28 03:55:27 UTC 2022


Great steer, Garson, thank you. The 2010 _Notes & Queries_ article,
"Dystopia: An Earlier Eighteenth-Century Use" may be borrowed from

https://archive.org/details/sim_notes-and-queries_2010-03_57_1/page/86/mode/2up?q=dystopia

and the 1983 _Notes & Queries_ article, "Dystopia: An Eighteenth-Century
Use", referenced in the 2010 article, may be borrowed from

https://archive.org/details/sim_notes-and-queries_1983-02_30_1/page/64/mode/2up

Both articles supply illuminating historical details, as well as some
discussion of the 1747 "typographically puzzling rendition of
*dustopia*" (quote from Budakov, 2010).

On 10/27/22 14:14, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> Fantastic work, James. The poem "Utopia: Or, Apollo's Golden Days" was
> published in Dublin in 1747. The original spelling for dystopia was
> DUSTOPIA. The spelling was revised to dystopia when the poem was
> reprinted in The Gentleman's Magazine.
> 
> Year: 1747 MDCCXLVII
> Title: Utopia: Or, Apollo's Golden Days
> Author: Lewis Henry Younge (GB author)
> Publication: Printed for George Faulkner, Dublin, Ireland
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=DCRcAAAAQAAJ&q=Dustopia#v=snippet&
> 
> [Begin excerpt - double check for typos]
> So venomous, that some had rather
> Have, in their stead, the toad, or adder.
> Unhappy isle! Scarce known to Fame;
> DUSTOPIA was its slighted name.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> The webpage below refers to this topic and indicates that a previous
> researcher uncovered the early appearance of dustopia/dystopia and
> published a note in the Notes and Queries of March 2010 on page 86 to
> 88.
> 
> Webpage title: Dystopia: An Earlier Eighteenth-Century Use.” Notes and
> Queries 57.1 (March 2010): 8
> 
> https://openpublishing.psu.edu/utopia/content/utopia-or-apollos-golden-days
> 
> Garson
> 
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 4:36 PM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

-- 
James Eric Lawson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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