User:Chavey/Ancient
< User:Chavey
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Revision as of 23:00, 15 March 2013 by Chavey (talk | contribs) (→Ancient Works of Speculative Fiction -- Format improvements)
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.
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 1600 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. |
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). |
| |||
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: |
| |||
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: |
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. |