User:Chavey/Ancient

Ancient Works of Speculative Fiction

This is an attempt to catalog the oldest works of speculative fiction, using ISFDB listings, the "standard" bibliographic sources, WorldCat, and a few other resources. This includes only fiction: It does not include essays, non-fiction, or art. With many of the older works, dates given are best available estimates, and are not claimed to be precise.

Inclusion criteria: Deciding which ancient works justify inclusion includes consideration of certain issues that aren't major concerns with more modern literature. We outline some of those issues here, and how they have been resolved:

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Myths and legends:Stories which are believed to be true, either by the writer or by the readers, are not included. This includes stories about, say, Greek and Roman gods during the time that these were viewed as true. By the time of Ovid's Metamorphosis, for example, the Romans no longer believe in such stories, and hence they have become pure fantasy for them. Lester del Rey views The Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2150-2000 BCE) as science fiction because it features a flood scene that in some ways resembles work of apocalyptic science fiction, and Wikipedia views it as "fantastic literature". But current scholarship suggests that this story may be oral tradition descended from the filling of the Black Sea when the Mediterranean sea flooded into in around 5000 BCE. As a likely "legend", this story is not included. This criteria eliminates all religious works from consideration, even works such as the Biblical "Revelations" which shares much in common with apocalyptic fantasies.

Magic of the Gods: Magic used by the gods, when the people believe in those gods, is not cause for inclusion in this category. However, when the gods give magical items to humans, or give them magical powers, that becomes grounds for inclusion.

Wizards, witches, and ghosts: During much of the history covered by this list, "average" people believed in the existence of wizards, witches, and ghosts. The existence of such characters in a story is not grounds for inclusion unless the stories include specific instances of these characters doing "impossible" things. Thus a ghost appearing to someone is likely not enough to justify inclusion, but that ghost showing up and directing the person to the missing location of their body would be.

Fantastic BeastsMany stories that include strange beasts and people are known to come from distorted tales of imperfectly understood observations. Thus the centaur may have come from people who did ride horses seeing invaders riding horses from a distance. The unicorn may have come from stories of the rhinoceros seen by African travelers, or from misunderstood fossil remains. Headless men carrying their heads in their arms may come from the Indonesian orangutans. Such stories might be excluded if the author appears to be trying to write the truth, or included if it seems that they are trying to write a fantastical story.

They thought it was true: In some cases, we may include a story where the writer viewed themselves as passing on truth when it is important enough as a precursor to speculative fiction. This applies, for example, to Plato's descriptions of Atlantis, and Homer's stories of the Amazons.

Anthropomorphized animals and objects: The use of talking animals, such as in Aesop's Fables and similar stories, or talking objects, such as the clouds in Aristophanes' play "The Clouds", where they are simply stand-ins for human characters or narrators, is not sufficient for inclusion. </nl> I have attempted to identify bibliographic works that include significant numbers of such ancient works, including those already in the ISFDB, and incorporated them into this listing. This listing includes all works in the following sources, up to the date listed:

• Current ISFDB listings (through 1625 so far);
• Bleiler's "Science-Fiction: The Early Years" (through 1600 so far).
• Gunn's "The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" (not started yet)
• Nicholson's "Voyages to the Moon" (not started yet)
• Pringle's "The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy" (not started yet)

700 B.C.E. to 1000 A.D.

Year	Title	Author	Notes, e.g. on the speculative fiction content
700 B.C.	The Odyssey	Homer	Circe (the witch), Cyclops, Sirens, various monstrous beings, and a magic bag containing 3 of the 4 winds.
440 B.C.	The Amazons	Herodotus	The earliest form of the Amazon legends, and an important precursor for speculative fiction. Academics argue as to whether Herodotus thought he was writing "history" or knew that he was writing fiction. We classify this as a non-fiction essay.
414 B.C.	The Birds	Aristophanes	??
380 B.C.	The Republic	Plato	Utopian fiction, and very influential on later Utopian works. (Bleiler)
360 B.C.	Timaeus	Plato	First known mention of Atlantis. Main story postponed to Critias. (Bleiler)
350 B.C.	Critias	Plato	Includes the story of Atlantis. (Bleiler)
8 A.D.	Metamorphoses	Ovid	Transformation tales. Many Roman myths, which are not generally genre for us. Includes Daedalus & Icarus.
75	Life of Lycurgus Non-genre	Plutarch	Included in "Ideal Commonwealths", which has several Utopian works, but this is not a speculative fiction utopian work. It is intended as a historical essay about the early Spartan society, which the author views as having been a utopia in its earliest forms. Bleiler (#1556, p. 521) says this "is not relevant to us".
170	The True History	Lucian of Samosata	Women who are part vines. Three-headed vultures. Monstrous sea creatures. Most importantly (for us), a trip to the moon, and many oddities of the people of the moon, and a war between the kingdoms of the Moon, Sun, and Venus. (Bleiler)
175	Icaromenippus, an Aerial Expedition	Lucian of Samosata	A flight to the moon, and to the Greek heaven. (Bleiler)

1000 A.D. to 1500 A.D.

1070	Katha Sarit Sagara	Somadeva Bhatta	An early Indian collection of stories, including "Twenty-five tales of a demon", the demon being a vampire. By legend, at least, this is a descendent of a more ancient work, the Brihatkatha, c. 500 A.D. This older work does not (as best as we can tell) include the vampire stories, but it does include the acquisition by Naravāhanadatta of various magical powers from the Vedic gods, which might make it borderline SF, although we do not include it separately here.
1070	The Founding of the City of Páṭalíputra	Somadeva Bhatta and C. H. Tawney	This is a translation, or re-telling, of one of the main stories from the Katha Sarit Sagara, and hence we list it with the date of the original story. The story focuses on three magical items: shoes of flight; a stick of truth; and a vessel of unending food. Using these, the hero is able to wake a version of "Sleeping Beauty" and create the city of the title.
1320	The Divine Comedy	Dante Alighieri	"On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents allegorically the soul's journey towards God." (Wikipedia) Only the "surface" level qualifies this work for inclusion here. The earliest extant manuscript versions are from the 1330's.
1358	The Decameron	Giovanni Boccaccio	Written between 1348 and 1358 (i.e., completed in 1358) revised 1370-1371. Contains 100 stories, a few of which are speculative fiction. These stories are listed below, with links when we have them listed as separate titles. These don't have titles in the original collection, but are known by day (1 to 10) and which tale of that day (1 to 10).
	4th day, tale 5. Now known as A Story of Ravenna. A female ghost is cursed to be hunted down, killed, and devoured by a pack of hounds every week. (Ashley/Contento) 5th day, tale 8. See Isabella, or The Pot of Basil A ghost of her lover appears to Lisabetta in a dream, and tells here where his body is. 7th day, tale 10. A man dies having promised his comrade to return to him from the other world; which he does, and tells him what sort of life is led there. 9th day, tale 10. Dom Gianni uses an enchantment to transform another man's wife into a mare; 10th day, tale 4. Messer Gentile de' Carisendi disinters a lady that he loves, who has been buried for dead. She, being reanimated, gives birth to a male child; and Messer Gentile restores her to her husband. 10th day, tale 5. Madonna Dianora craves of Messer Ansaldo a garden that shall be as fair in January as in May Messer Ansaldo binds himself to a necromancer, and thereby gives her the garden. 10th day, tale 9. Messer Torello is captured by Saladin while on a crusade, falls sick, and by magic arts is transported in a single night back to Italy. 5th day, tale 1. (Non-genre) Ashley/Contento also include in their list of supernatural works "The Story of Cymon and Iphigenia", from the Decameron, but I see nothing supernatural about that story (aside from love turning "a hopeless imbecile" into a wise and fashionable man).
1371	The Travels and Voyages of Sir John Mandeville	John Mandeville	"Travels through far-off and fantastic regions full of the most amazing marvels and wonders"
1387	The Canterbury Tales	Geoffrey Chaucer	We have multiple stories from The Canterbury Tales listed in the ISFDB, mostly non-genre, but included because of their existence in various anthologies. The stories we have are listed below:
	The Nun's Priest's Tale (excerpt). A world of talking animals who reflect both human perception and fallacy, which is thus non-genre. Depending on the portion that's extracted, this may also include the ghosts of the next entry. Murder Will Out Also an excerpt from "The Nun's Priest's Tale". Apparently including ghosts, hence genre. How the Three Young Men Found Death. Non-genre. Adapted from The Pardoner's Tale. Three men set out to kill Death. An old man tells them how to find Death, and sure enough they each die -- hence "meeting death", albeit with no supernatural elements. A Compleynte on Deth of Sir William Thatcher, Sumtyme Ycleped Ulrich Von Liechtenstein Non-genre. A follow-up to "A Knight's Tale", the first tale of The Canterbury Tales. There is nothing supernatural here, and the poem appears not to be by Chaucer but by a modern (anonymous) author writing in Chaucer's style.
1390	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight	The Gawain Poet	A mysterious "Green Knight" challenges any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time.
1472	The Divine Comedy	Dante Alighieri	The first printed publication of this work, listed above under the original release date of (about) 1320. We have other publications listed under The Inferno, which is the first portion of The Divine Comedy.
1484	Metamorphoses	Ovid	The first printed publication of this work, listed above under the original release date of 8 A.D. In 1484, both French and English printed versions were released.
1485	Le Morte d'Arthur	Sir Thomas Malory	The oldest extant version of the King Arthur stories.
1488	The Odyssey	Homer	The first print publication of this work. The manuscript version is listed above under 440 B.C.
1494	Daß Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam	Sebastian Brant	In English, called "The Ship of Fools". Speculative fiction contents unknown to us.

1500 A.D. to 1600 A.D.

1508	Amadís de Gaula	Garcí Rodríguez de Montalvo	Arthurian-style novel of chivalry and the ideal knight. Speculative elements include giants, a sorcerer and sorceress. Amadís is the knight that Don Quixote tries to imitate.
1509	Las Sergas de Esplandián	Garcí Rodríguez de Montalvo	Continuation of the 4 books of Amadís de Gaula. Includes a description of an island in the Pacific named "California" populated exclusively by a race of black Amazon women. The current state of California is named after that imaginary location.
1516	Utopia: or, The Happy Republic, A Philosophical Romance	Sir Thomas More	Classic utopian fiction.
1516-1532	Orlando Furioso	Ludovico Ariosto	The first version appeared in 1516, with a second edition containing minor changes in 1521, and a final expanded version in 1532. Includes fantastical and magical elements such as a trip to the moon, and fantastical creatures including a hippogriff and a gigantic sea monster called an orc.
1516	The Palace of Illusions	Ludovico Ariosto	An extract from "Orlando Furioso".
1549	Belphagor, Or the Marriage of the Devil	Niccolò Machiavelli	Contents not known to us.
1567	Palmerin d’Angleterre	Francisco de Moraes	A spin-off of the "Amadís de Gaula" listed under 1508. Two stories from this work are included in the ISFDB:
	The Magical Palace of Darkness The Enchantment of Lionarda
1570	Beware the Cat	William Baldwin	These stories feature an Irish werewolf, the Grimalkin, and an underworld society of talking cats, among several other horror and magical/supernatural elements such as an ancient book of forbidden lore and magic potions.
1584	Flyting Against Polwart	Alexander Montgomerie	Elfland, fairies
1590	Monkey	Wu Ch'êng-ên	Monsters, anthropomorphic animals (who interact with humans), a half pig/half human.
1590	The Faerie Queene	Edmund Spenser	This extended epic poem deals with the adventures of knights, dragons, ladies in distress, etc. yet it is also an extended allegory about the moral life and what makes for a life of virtue. The first three books were published in 1590; the second three in 1596.
1596	The Faerie Queene	Edmund Spenser	The last three volumes of the full 6-volume set; see 1590.

1600 A.D. to 1700 A.D.

1600	A Midsummer Night's Dream	William Shakespeare	Fairies, Fairyland, and a magical love potion.
1602	La città del Sole (The City of the Sun)	Tommaso Campanella	A utopian theocratic society where goods, women and children are held in common. Some futuristic inventions, such as "vessels able to navigate without wind and without sails".
1603	Hamlet	William Shakespeare	Ghosts.
1604	The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus	Christopher Marlowe	Necromancy and the Devil as a character.
1605	Don Quixote and the Cat Demons	Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra	Contents not familiar to us.
1605	Mundus Alter et Idem	Joseph Hall	Contents not familiar to us.
1606	Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I	William Shakespeare	Witches.
1607	The Revengers Tragaedie	Cyril Tourneur	Contents not familiar to us.
1612	The White Devil	John Webster	Contents not familiar to us.
1621	Nova Typis Transacta Navigatio: Novi Orbis Indiae Occidentalis	Caspar Plautius	Various sea-monsters and fantastical creatures. A mass celebrated by St. Brendan on the back of a whale.
1623	The Tempest	William Shakespeare	Evil magic, from the witch Sycorax; Divine magic from the magician Prospero. The air spirit Ariel, along with various other spirits of the island. A magic staff and book.
1623	The Winter's Tale	William Shakespeare	The ghost of Queen Hermione appears and, at the end, enters a statue which then comes to life as her.