The two classic surveys of the beginnings and precursors to sf are J. O. Bailey's Pilgrims Through Time and Space and I. F. Clarke's The Pattern of Expectation 1644-2001. Both spend just a couple of chapters on authors before Verne and both mostly stick to what might be called high literature. Very few practitioners were ever prolific and most had one or like Poe, at most a few works that could be put into the field.
I checked the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana by Jess Nevins, but that is arranged, oddly, by character, making it difficult to tell who was a prolific author. For that the best source would undoubtedly be Science Fiction: the Early Years, the ridiculous labor of love by Everett F. Blieiler, which gives story summaries of about 3000 pre-Gernsback works. He's hit all levels of publication, from dime novels on up, so it would be much more likely for him to spot a serial procreater. The book is arranged by author name and then chronologically by story inside an author entry. Fortunately, one of the several indexes sorts the entries by first publication date. >From that I see that there seem to be fewer than 100 entries that have a publication date before the 1863 French language original publication of Voyage Au centre de la terre and not many more before A Journey to the Center of the Earth was first published in English in London in 1872 and New York in 1874. The odds against any individual being a large fraction of that 100 is small. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd say that the name with the most stories before Verne is Poe. A collection of The Science Fiction of Edgar Allen Poe published in 1976 (ed. by Harold Bever) lists 11 short stories. After him, try to guess. Surprise. Nathaniel Hawthorne. His seven entries would be unrecognizable as science fiction by most readers, being mostly allegories. Verne is the first major science fiction writer because he seems to be the first writer ever to make his career in the field. There is nobody like him earlier that I can find. And he is remarkably early. Most early writers - even Wells - weren't even born by 1863. In addition his works are true novels rather than short fiction and they are technology-driven rather than by horror or philosophy. He fits every possible qualification. He is not nearly the most prolific of the 19th century writers, however. That would have to go to "Noname." You think I mean Anonymous, don't you? Wrong. There were several writers using the pseudonym Noname who wrote ultabagillions of stories about Frank Reade Jr. and Jake Wright for the dime novels. The lead writer seems to have been one Luis P. Senarens, who wrote under 27 pseudonyms. He was a honey. "In many ways Senarens' work typified the dime novel at its worst, with weak or no plotting, deliberate lowering of level, sloppy research into background, jingoism, sadism, and outrageous racial predjudice focused on blacks, Mexicans, and Jews." 179 Frank Reade Jr. adventures have been found and another 121 about Jack Wright. Reade made it into print by 1876 just two years after Verne in the U.S. with Senarens taking the helm in 1882. Mike Ashley has made the claim that Senarens was "the first prolific writer of science fiction." I don't see how he leaves out Verne, who wrote over 54 books, but some are travel adventures that some people don't count. Me, myself, I'd still go with Verne. He has two decades over Senarens, a deep body of famous work, and wasn't a pseudonymous hack. Steve -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
