 | |
| Author | Gregory Casparian |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Gregory Casparian |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Mayflower Presses |
Publication date | 1906 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | ix, 144 |
| OCLC | 441951035 |
An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future is a 1906 novel written and illustrated by Gregory Casparian and published by Mayflower Presses. A reviewer for io9 has called it "the first lesbian science fiction novel". [1]
Little is known about Gregory Casparian (1856–1942). [2] A Turkish-Armenian, Casparian served as an officer in the Turkish army. He emigrated to the United States in 1877, settled in New York and worked as an artist, painter, and photoengraver. The Anglo-American Alliance is his only published work. [1]
The novel is set in the future of 1960 and depicts a world that is geopolitically broadly similar to that of 1906, with the US and the UK as the world's major colonial powers. Casparian stated in the preface that the purpose of the book was to show the desirability of a world government, to which he saw the establishment of an Anglo-American federation as a first step. [3] There are limited technological advances, such as prenatal sex discernment, suspended animation and a cure for laziness (which benefits the "negroes of the Southern States", according to the novel). Telescopes have shown intelligent life on other planets, which is described in interludes unconnected to the rest of the novel. [1]
The novel follows the romance of two young upper-class women, the Briton Aurora Cunningham and the American Margaret MacDonald, who attend the same ladies' seminary in Cornwall and pursue a secret romantic relationship. After graduation, Margaret has herself surgically transformed into a man, Spencer Hamilton. As a famous musician, Hamilton courts and marries Aurora, and they live happily ever after. [1]
Reviewing the novel in 1990, Everett F. Bleiler described it as a curiosity and as an "eccentric novel with an early description of surgical sex changes". [3] A 2011 article in io9 highlighted the work's novelty in that it presented a lesbian romantic relationship directly rather than through the subtext of a "Boston marriage", as was occasionally done in Victorian fiction, and in featuring science fiction's first transgender hero. [1]
Robert William Chambers was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.
Scientific romance is an archaic, mainly British term for the genre of fiction now commonly known as science fiction. The term originated in the 1850s to describe both fiction and elements of scientific writing, but it has since come to refer to the science fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily that of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. In recent years the term has come to be applied to science fiction written in a deliberately anachronistic style as a homage to or pastiche of the original scientific romances.
A romance novel or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primary focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed to the development of this genre include Maria Edgeworth, Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë.
Thaddeus Maxim Eugene (Ted) Dikty was an American editor who also played a role as one of the earliest science fiction anthologists, and as a publisher.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBTQ) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres.[a] Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative.
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Pluto has appeared in fiction as a setting since shortly after its 1930 discovery, albeit infrequently. It was initially comparatively popular as it was newly discovered and thought to be the outermost object of the Solar System and made more fictional appearances than either Uranus or Neptune, though still far fewer than other planets. Alien life, sometimes intelligent life and occasionally an entire ecosphere, is a common motif in fictional depictions of Pluto. Human settlement appears only sporadically, but it is often either the starting or finishing point for a tour of the Solar System. It has variously been depicted as an originally extrasolar planet, the remnants of a destroyed planet, or entirely artificial. Its moon Charon has also appeared in a handful of works.
Neptune has appeared in fiction since shortly after its 1846 discovery, albeit infrequently. It initially made appearances indirectly—e.g. through its inhabitants—rather than as a setting. The earliest stories set on Neptune itself portrayed it as a rocky planet rather than as having its actual gaseous composition; later works rectified this error. Extraterrestrial life on Neptune is uncommon in fiction, though the exceptions have ranged from humanoids to gaseous lifeforms. Neptune's largest moon Triton has also appeared in fiction, especially in the late 20th century onwards.
Everett Franklin Bleiler was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called "the foundation of modern SF bibliography". Among his other scholarly works are two Hugo Award–nominated volumes concerning early science fiction—Science-Fiction: The Early Years and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years—and the massive Guide to Supernatural Fiction.
Aristopia: A Romance-History of the New World is an 1895 utopian novel by Castello Holford, considered the first novel-length alternate history in English.
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics. A similar term is sapphic literature, encompassing works that feature love between women that are not necessarily lesbian.
The Time Stream is a science fiction novel by American writer John Taine. The novel was originally serialized in four parts in the magazine Wonder Stories beginning in December 1931. It was first published in book form in 1946 by The Buffalo Book Company in an edition of 2,000 copies of which only 500 were ever bound. It is the first novel to see time as a flowing stream.
The Diothas; or, A Far Look Ahead is a 1883 utopian novel written by John Macnie and published using the pseudonym "Ismar Thiusen". The Diothas has been called "perhaps the second most important American nineteenth-century ideal society" after Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888).
The Milltillionaire, or Age of Bardization is a work of utopian fiction written by Albert Waldo Howard, and published under the pseudonym "M. Auberré Hovorré." The book was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that characterized the final decades of the nineteenth century.
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional symbolical appearances in other genres. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.
An Entirely New Feature of a Thrilling Novel!: Entitled, The Social War of the Year 1900; Or, Conspirators and Lovers! is an American utopian novel by Simon Mohler Landis. Self-published in 1872 to commercial failure, it is regarded by some critics as one of the worst novels ever written.
Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine which published two issues in 1931. The fiction was unremarkable, but the cover art and illustrations, by Elliott Dold, were high quality, and have made the magazine a collector's item. The magazine ceased publication when Dold became ill and was unable to continue his duties both as editor and artist.
Amazing Stories Quarterly was a U.S. science fiction pulp magazine that was published between 1928 and 1934. It was launched by Hugo Gernsback as a companion to his Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, which had begun publishing in April 1926. Amazing Stories had been successful enough for Gernsback to try a single issue of an Amazing Stories Annual in 1927, which had sold well, and he decided to follow it up with a quarterly magazine. The first issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly was dated Winter 1928 and carried a reprint of the 1899 version of H.G. Wells' When the Sleeper Wakes. Gernsback's policy of running a novel in each issue was popular with his readership, though the choice of Wells' novel was less so. Over the next five issues, only one more reprint appeared: Gernsback's own novel Ralph 124C 41+, in the Winter 1929 issue. Gernsback went bankrupt in early 1929, and lost control of both Amazing Stories and Amazing Stories Quarterly; associate editor T. O'Conor Sloane then took over as editor. The magazine began to run into financial difficulties in 1932, and the schedule became irregular; the last issue was dated Fall 1934.
The Struggle for Empire: A Story of the Year 2236 written by Robert William Cole and first published in 1900 is a science fiction novel. It is regarded as one of the first space operas.
An Anglo-American Alliance public domain audiobook at LibriVox  | This article about a novel of the 1900s with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer theme is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |
 | This article about a speculative fiction novel (or novels) is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |
