Voltaire (1694-1778)

Francois-Marie Arouet, son of Francois Arouet and Marie Marguerite d'Aumart, was born in Paris, France on 21 Nov 1694. 

Known by his nom de plume Voltaire, Arouet was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression and separation of church and state. He was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form including plays, poems, novels, essays and historical and scientific works.

Voltaire was exiled to Tulle in 1715 for mocking the regent Orleans. Two years later, in 1717, he returned to Paris, only to be arrested and exiled to the Bastille for a year on charges of writing libelous poetry. He was sent to the Bastille again in 1726 for arguing with the Chevalier de Rohan and was detained there for two weeks before being shipped off to England where he remained for three years. In 1733, the publication of his Letters on the English Nation angered the French church and government, forcing him to flee to Lorraine. In 1778, He remained there for the next 15 years with his mistress, Emile De Breteuil, at the Chateau de Direy, visiting Paris occasionally as of 1735, when he was granted re-entry. By 1778, the French public had begun to regard him as a literary genius, and he returned to Paris a hero. He died there on 30 May 1778.

In 1752 he wrote "Micromegas," perhaps the first piece of science fiction. The tale recounts the visit to Earth of a being from a planet circling the star Sirius, and of his companion from the planet Saturn. The story is organized into seven brief chapters.

Micromegas Captures a Ship

The first describes Micromégas, an inhabitant of one of the planets that orbits Sirius. His home world is 21.6 million times greater in circumference than the Earth. Micromégas stands 20,000 feet tall. When he is almost 450 years old, approaching the end of his infancy, Micromégas writes a scientific book examining the insects on his planet, which at 100 feet are too small to be detected by ordinary microscopes. This book is considered heresy, and after a 200-year trial, he is banished from the court for a term of 800 years. Micromégas takes this as an incentive to travel around the Universe in a quest to develop his intellect and his spirit.

His first stop is Saturn, where he befriends the secretary of the Academy of Saturn, a man less than a third of his size (standing only 6,000 feet tall). They discuss the differences between their planets. The Saturnian has 72 senses; the Sirian has 1,000. The Saturnian lives for 15,000 Earth years; the Sirian lives for 10.5 million years. At the end of their conversation, they decide to take a philosophical journey together.

Eventually, they arrive on Earth and circumnavigate it in 36 hours, with the Saturnian only getting his lower legs wet in the deepest ocean and the Sirian barely wetting his ankles. They decide that the planet must be devoid of life, since it is too small for them to see with the naked eye. In the Baltic Sea, the Saturnian happened to spot a tiny speck swimming about, and he picks it up to discover that it is a whale. As they examine it, a boatful of philosophers returning from an Arctic voyage happens to run aground nearby.

The travellers examine the boat and, upon discovering the lifeforms inside it, they conclude that the tiny beings are too small to be of any intelligence or spirit. Yet they gradually realize the beings are speaking to each other, and they devise a hearing tube with the clippings of their fingernails in order to hear the tiny voices. After listening for a while, they learn the human language and begin a conversation, wherein they are shocked to discover the breadth of the human intellect.

The final chapter sees the humans testing the philosophies of Aristotle, Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz and Locke against the travellers' wisdom. When the travellers hear the theory of Aquinas that the world was made uniquely for mankind, they fall into an enormous fit of laughter. Taking pity on the humans, the Sirian decides to write them a book that will explain the point of everything to them. When the volume is presented to the Academy of Science in Paris, the secretary opens the book only to find blank pages.

Read it HERE ...

Faddey Bulgarin (1789-1859)

Faddey Venediktovich Bulgarin, son of a noble Polish family, was born near Minsk, Belarus on 5 Jul 1789. He died near Derpt (now Tartu) on 13 Sep 1859. His father, one of Kosciuszko's associates, was exiled to Siberia for having assassinated a Russian general.

Some of Bulgarin's stories were science fiction: "Probable Tall-Tales" is a far future story about the 29th century; "Improbable Tall-Tales" is a fantastic voyage into hollow Earth; "Mitrofanushka's Adventures in the Moon" is a satire.

Polly Cabell (1769-1858)

Mary Hopkins "Polly" Cabell, daughter of Joseph Cabell and Mary Hopkins, was born in Buckingham County, VA on 22 Feb 1769. In 1785 she married John Breckinridge with whom she had 9 children: Letitia, Joseph Cabell, Mary Hopkins, Robert, Mary Ann, John, Robert Jefferson, William Lewis and James Monroe. She died in Jefferson County, KY on 26 Mar 1858.

In her story "A Trip to the Moon", which was Published in Electra; A Belles Lettres Monthly for Young People (February 1884), a Dutchman who is preparing a giant cask of beer for the forthcoming Cambrinus' Congress is hurled out into space with the cask explodes. He reaches the moon, landing safely in a snow drift on the sice of an extinct volcano. As he wanders about, he sees that the moon is barren of life and he anticipates death from hunger and thirst. He shudders with horror, and awakens in bed back on earch. He had simply been knocked unconscious by the explosion. As the author states, "His beer was not his bier* after all."

*A bier is a movable frame on which a coffin or a corpse is placed before burial or cremation or on which it is carried to the grave.

John Herschel (1792-1871)

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

Throughout the final week of August 1835, a long article appeared in serial form on the front page of the New York Sun. It bore the headline:

GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES
LATELY MADE
BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L.D. F.R.S. &c.
At the Cape of Good Hope
[From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science]

The article started by triumphantly listing a series of stunning astronomical breakthroughs the famous British astronomer, Sir John Herschel, had made "by means of a telescope of vast dimensions and an entirely new principle." Herschel, the article declared, had established a "new theory of cometary phenomena"; he had discovered planets in other solar systems; and he had "solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy." Then, almost as if it were an afterthought, the article revealed Herschel's final, stunning achievement. He had discovered life on the moon. 

Lithograph of "ruby amhitheater" for The Sun
August 28, 1835 (4th article of 6)

The article was an elaborate hoax. Herschel hadn't really observed life on the moon, nor had he accomplished any of the other astronomical breakthroughs credited to him in the article. In fact, Herschel wasn't even aware until much later that such discoveries had been attributed to him. However, the announcement caused enormous excitement throughout America and Europe. To this day, the moon hoax is remembered as one of the most sensational media hoaxes of all time.

Continued HERE ...

George Tucker (1775-1861)

American Politician, George Tucker, was the son of Daniel Tucker and Elizabeth. He born at St. George Island, Bermuda on 20 Aug 1775 and died in Albemarle County, VA on 10 Apr 1861. George married first in 1797 to Mary Byrd Farley who died childless in 1799. In 1802 he married Maria Ball Carter with whom he had six children: Daniel George, Eleanor Rose, Maria, Elizabeth, Lelia and Harriett.

In 1827, using the pseudonym Joseph Atterley, he wrote the satire "A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians." It is one of the earliest American works of science fiction, and was relatively successful, earning Tucker $100 from the sale of one thousand copies. It received positive reviews from the American Quarterly Review and the Western Monthly Review. Tucker used "The Voyage" to ridicule the social manners, religion and professions of some of his colleagues and to criticize some erroneous scientific methods and results apparent to him at the time.

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898)

Edward Bellamy, son of Rufus King Bellamy and Maria Louisa Putnam, was born in Chicopee, MA on 26 Mar 1850. In 1882 he married Emma Augusta Sanderson, with whom he had two children: Paul and Marion. At the age of 25, he developed tuberculosis and suffered with its effects throughout his adult life. He died as a result of the disease in Chicopee on 22 May 1898. 

Bellamy's early novels, including "Six to One" (1877), "Dr. Heidenhoff's Process" (1880) and "Miss Ludington's Sister" (1884) were unremarkable works, making use of standard psychological plots. A turn to utopian science fiction with "Looking Backward, 2000–1887," published in January 1888, captured the public imagination and catapulted him to literary fame. The publisher of the book could scarcely keep up with demand. Within a year the book had sold some 200,000 copies and by the end of the 19th century it had sold more copies than any other book published in America outside of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Looking Backward

The book tells the story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up one hundred and thirteen years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000 and, while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalisation of all industry, the use of an "industrial army" to organize production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.

The young man readily finds a guide, Doctor Leete, who shows him around and explains all the advances of this new age; including drastically reduced working hours for people performing menial jobs and almost instantaneous, Internet-like delivery of goods. Everyone retires with full benefits at age 45, and may eat in any of the public kitchens. The productive capacity of America is nationally owned, and the goods of society are equally distributed to its citizens. A considerable portion of the book is dialogue between Leete and West wherein West expresses his confusion about how the future society works and Leete explains the answers using various methods, such as metaphors or direct comparisons with 19th-century society.

Although Bellamy's novel did not discuss technology or the economy in detail, commentators frequently compare Looking Backward with actual economic and technological developments. For example, Julian West is taken to a store which (with its descriptions of cutting out the middleman to cut down on waste in a similar way to the consumers' cooperatives of his own day based on the Rochdale Principles of 1844) somewhat resembles a modern warehouse club like BJ's, Costco, or Sam's Club. He additionally introduces a concept of "credit" cards in chapters 9, 10, 11, 13, 25, and 26, but these actually function like modern debit cards. All citizens receive an equal amount of "credit." Those with more difficult, specialized, dangerous or unpleasant jobs work fewer hours (in contrast to the real-world practice of paying them more for their efforts of, presumably, the same hours). Bellamy also predicts both sermons and music being available in the home through cable "telephone". Bellamy labeled the philosophy behind the vision "nationalism", and his work inspired the formation of more than 160 Nationalist Clubs to propagate his ideas.

Although Bellamy claimed he did not write "Looking Backward" as a blueprint for political action, but rather sought to write "a literary fantasy, a fairy tale of social felicity," the book inspired legions of inspired readers to establish so-called Nationalist Clubs, beginning in Boston late in 1888. Bellamy's vision of a country relieved of its social ills through abandonment of the principle of competition and establishment of state ownership of industry proved an appealing panacea to a generation of intellectuals alienated from the dark side of Gilded Age America. By 1891 it was reported that no fewer than 162 Nationalist Clubs were in existence.

Edwin Balmer (1883-1959)

Edwin Balmer, son of Thomas Balmer and Helen Clark, was born in Chicago, IL on 26 Jul 1883. He died on 21 Mar 1959. In 1909 he married Katharine MacHarg, sister of writer William McHarg. After her death he married Grace A. Kee.

Together with author Philip Wylie, Balmer wrote the catastrophe novels "When Worlds Collide" (1933) and "After Worlds Collide" (1934). The former was made into an award winning movie in 1951. With artist Marvin Bradley, Balmer also helped create the syndicated comic strip "Speed Spaulding", partiall based on the Worlds Collide series, which ran from 1938-1941 in the commic book Famous Funnies.