205-613: George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones (20 August 1857 – 4 June 1906) was a British writer. He was active mainly in the science fiction genre —or as it was known at the time, scientific romance —in particular writing many future-war stories and playing a significant role in shaping that emerging subgenre. For a short period of time, he was the leading science fiction author in his home country both in terms of popularity and commercial success. Griffith grew up with his parents and older brother, receiving home-schooling and moving frequently during his childhood due to his father's career as
410-567: A PR event, with the King dressed in tartan and greeted by his people, many of them also in similar tartan ceremonial dress. This form of dress, proscribed after the Jacobite rising of 1745 , became one of the seminal, potent and ubiquitous symbols of Scottish identity. In 1825, a UK-wide banking crisis resulted in the collapse of the Ballantyne printing business, of which Scott was the only partner with
615-761: A computer -like screen , computer viruses , video chat , tanning beds , home treadmills , and more. In 1963, the time travel-themed Doctor Who premiered on BBC Television. The original series ran until 1989 and was revived in 2005. It has been extremely popular worldwide and has greatly influenced later TV science fiction. Other programs in the 1960s included The Outer Limits (1963–1965), Lost in Space (1965–1968), and The Prisoner (1967). Star Trek (the original series), created by Gene Roddenberry , premiered in 1966 on NBC Television and ran for three seasons. It combined elements of space opera and Space Western . Only mildly successful at first,
820-532: A lost race that lives underground . Virtually to his dying gasp, Griffith continued to dictate war after war, each to end all wars. Griffith's health was failing. With his finances likewise deteriorating as a result of decreasing book sales after 1904, he moved with his family to Port Erin on the Isle of Man where the cost of living was lower. He continued to write in spite of his worsening condition. Thus, when The Great Weather Syndicate —wherein weather control
1025-528: A schoolmaster in 1877, six months after his return to England, teaching English at the preparatory school Worthing College in Sussex . At this time, he had no formal qualifications and studied at night to be able to give lessons in the daytime. He left Worthing to study at a university in Germany, returning a year later to teach at Brighton . He continued to study at nights to get the necessary teaching diplomas for
1230-428: A space opera , went on to become a worldwide popular culture phenomenon , and the second-highest-grossing film series of all time. Since the 1980s, science fiction films , along with fantasy , horror , and superhero films, have dominated Hollywood's big-budget productions. Science fiction films often " cross-over " with other genres, including film noir ( Blade Runner - 1982), family film ( E.T.
1435-401: A tutor —before using his earnings to travel. He later claimed both to have received an offer to marry a Polynesian princess and to have circumnavigated the globe six times; about the latter, the science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz says that "the variety of locales for his stories would tend to substantiate this claim." He returned to England at the age of 19. Griffith started working as
1640-442: A Gothic anomaly, and the work is complete long before I have attained the point I proposed." Yet the manuscripts rarely show major deletions or changes of direction, and Scott could clearly keep control of his narrative. That was important, for as soon as he had made fair progress with a novel he would start sending batches of manuscript to be copied (to preserve his anonymity), and the copies were sent to be set up in type. (As usual at
1845-599: A Year " published under his pseudonym Levin Carnac in June 1896. H. G. Wells , whose The Time Machine (1895) had been a great success, wrote " In the Abyss " for the August 1896 issue of Pearson's Magazine and quickly replaced Griffith as Pearson's favourite science fiction writer. During the second half of the 1890s, Wells also supplanted Griffith as the best-selling science fiction writer, and
2050-651: A Year" and "The Great Crellin Comet" in 1899. By 1899, Griffith had moved from his Kensington home in London to Littlehampton to be able to engage in sailing, a favourite pastime of his. That year, he first appeared in the British Who's Who , and wrote the short stories " The Conversion of the Professor " and " The Searcher of Souls ", published in the May issue of Pearson's Magazine and
2255-438: A bad writer technically"; Harris-Fain outlines his principal failings as "an uninspired, if not clichéd, style, poor characterization, weak ideas, and repetition". Stableford calls Griffith "rather inept" and views him as lacking originality, noting that he would often name his sources of inspiration outright; The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction similarly describes him as borrowing themes "more conspicuously from earlier texts than
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#17330925217432460-488: A career in education. He started his writing career while at Brighton, writing for local papers among others. He then took a job teaching at Bolton Grammar School in 1883, and while there published his first two books: the poetry collections Poems (1883) and The Dying Faith (1884), both published under his pen name Lara. There he met Elizabeth Brierly (1861–1933); they married in February 1887 and eventually had two sons and
2665-491: A clergyman. Following his father's death when Griffith was 14 years old, he went to school for little over a year before leaving England and travelling the world, returning at the age of 19. He then worked as a teacher for ten years before pursuing a career in writing. After an initial setback that left Griffith without the means to provide for himself, he was hired by the publisher C. Arthur Pearson in 1890. Griffith made his literary breakthrough with his debut novel The Angel of
2870-453: A conversationalist, largely owing to his background travelling the world, and was soon promoted to columnist . He carried on in this capacity for the rest of the decade. Griffith made his literary breakthrough in 1893 with what was then known as a scientific romance —an exciting adventure story, or " romance ", with cutting-edge science playing a key role—and would later be called science fiction . The future war genre had been popular since
3075-769: A couple of short stories in the later years of Griffith's career: " The Lost Elixir " about an undead mummy , published in The Pall Mall Magazine in October 1903, and " From Pole to Pole " about a tunnel connecting the Earth's poles, published in The Windsor Magazine in October 1904. Both were included in the Griffith short story collection "The Raid of Le Vengeur and Other Stories", edited by Moskowitz and published in 1974. The twilight years of Griffith's career were marked by
3280-472: A daughter. He passed the College of Preceptors exam the same year, thus completing his formal education in teaching, and promptly left that line of work in favour of pursuing a career in writing. He would later describe his time working as a teacher as "ten years' penal servitude ". Griffith and Brierly moved to London , where he started working as a journalist at a paper in 1888. He worked his way up to become
3485-569: A declined aristocratic family, with Edgar Ravenswood and his fiancée as victims of the wife of an upstart lawyer in a time of political power-struggle before the Act of Union in 1707. In 1820, in a bold move, Scott shifted period and location for Ivanhoe (1820) to 12th-century England. This meant he was dependent on a limited range of sources, all of them printed: he had to bring together material from different centuries and invent an artificial form of speech based on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The result
3690-634: A determined walker, he experienced greater freedom of movement on horseback. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, a year or so younger than most fellow students. In March 1786, aged 14, he began an apprenticeship in his father's office to become a Writer to the Signet . At school and university Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson , whose father Professor Adam Ferguson hosted literary salons. Scott met
3895-447: A doubt, a streak of messianism in Griffith and he held, at one time, strong political beliefs. But after he had been working for a while for Pearson he had, in common with most journalists of his kind, probably left most ideals behind him, and his work was dictated entirely by the demands of his publishers. Griffith was irreligious , and in his youth he wrote for the freethinker magazine Secular Review . Stableford comments that being
4100-620: A financial interest. Its debts of £130,000 (equivalent to £13,500,000 in 2023) caused his very public ruin. Rather than declare himself bankrupt or accept any financial support from his many supporters and admirers (including the King himself), he placed his house and income in a trust belonging to his creditors and set out to write his way out of debt. To add to his burdens, his wife Charlotte died in 1826. Despite these events or because of them, Scott kept up his prodigious output. Between 1826 and 1832 he produced six novels, two short stories and two plays, eleven works or volumes of non-fiction, and
4305-498: A freethinker whose father was a clergyman was a background Griffith shared with many other scientific romance authors. He advocated fiercely for secularism as a young man; Stableford writes that he evidently tempered his opinions on this later in his life, as he wrote the serial "Thou Shalt Not—" for a religious audience in Pearson's The Sunday Reader in 1899. Moskowitz further writes that Griffith appears to have taken up an interest in
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#17330925217434510-505: A future-war serial, Griffith volunteered. He brought in a synopsis the following day, and got the assignment. The synopsis was published in Pearson's Weekly on 14 January 1893, before the story itself had been written. The next week's edition saw the publication of the first of 39 weekly instalments of Griffith's story, The Angel of the Revolution . The name of the author was not revealed until
4715-535: A great and influential film. In 1954, Godzilla , directed by Ishirō Honda , began the kaiju subgenre of science fiction film, which feature large creatures of any form, usually attacking a major city or engaging other monsters in battle . 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey , directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the work of Arthur C. Clarke , rose above the mostly B-movie offerings up to that time both in scope and quality, and influenced later science fiction films. That same year, Planet of
4920-498: A journal, along with several unfinished works. The non-fiction included the Life of Napoleon Buonaparte in 1827, two volumes of the History of Scotland in 1829 and 1830, and four instalments of the series entitled Tales of a Grandfather – Being Stories Taken From Scottish History , written one per year over the period 1828–1831, among several others. Finally, Scott had recently been inspired by
5125-669: A journey to the Moon and how the Earth 's motion is seen from there. Kepler has been called the "father of science fiction". Following the 17th-century development of the novel as a literary form , Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped define the form of the science fiction novel. Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein was the first work of science fiction. Edgar Allan Poe wrote several stories considered to be science fiction, including " The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall " (1835), which featured
5330-605: A local inn during the circuit. In 1804, he ended his use of the Lasswade cottage and leased the substantial house of Ashestiel , 6 miles (9.7 km) from Selkirk, sited on the south bank of the River Tweed and incorporating an ancient tower house . At Scott's insistence the first edition of Minstrelsy was printed by his friend James Ballantyne at Kelso. In 1798 James had published Scott's version of Goethe 's Erlkönig in his newspaper The Kelso Mail , and in 1799 included it and
5535-457: A magazine he had acquired in mid-1893. This became The Outlaws of the Air , serialized between 8 September 1894 and 23 March 1895. It was the last of Griffith's stories to be published by Tower before the company folded in June 1896; while the hardcover released in June 1895 sold well, he likely never received payment for it. The story mostly reiterated the main points of The Angel of the Revolution on
5740-738: A member of a cadet branch of the Clan Scott and a Writer to the Signet , and his wife Anne Rutherford, a sister of Daniel Rutherford and a descendant both of the Clan Swinton and of the Haliburton family (descent from which granted Walter's family the hereditary right of burial in Dryburgh Abbey ). Walter was, through the Haliburtons, a cousin of the London property developer James Burton (d. 1837), who
5945-492: A modest price of five shillings (60p) these were an innovative and profitable venture aimed at a wide readership: the print run was an astonishing 30,000. In a "General Preface" to the "Magnum Edition", Scott wrote that one factor prompting him to resume work on the Waverley manuscript in 1813 had been a desire to do for Scotland what had been done in the fiction of Maria Edgeworth , "whose Irish characters have gone so far to make
6150-617: A narrative poem in which I felt the sense of Progress so languid." But the metrical uniformity is relieved by frequent songs and the Perthshire Highland setting is presented as an enchanted landscape, which caused a phenomenal increase in the local tourist trade. Moreover, the poem touches on a theme that was to be central to the Waverley Novels: the clash between neighbouring societies in different stages of development. The remaining two long narrative poems, Rokeby (1813), set in
6355-562: A neighbouring ford used by the monks of Melrose Abbey . Following a modest enlargement of the original farmhouse in 1811–12, massive expansions took place in 1816–19 and 1822–24. Scott described the resulting building as 'a sort of romance in Architecture' and 'a kind of Conundrum Castle to be sure'. With his architects William Atkinson and Edward Blore Scott was a pioneer of the Scottish Baronial style of architecture, and Abbotsford
George Griffith - Misplaced Pages Continue
6560-504: A niece of Lady Margaret Ferguson. In 1799 Scott was appointed Sheriff-Depute of the County of Selkirk , based at the courthouse in the Royal Burgh of Selkirk . In his early married days Scott earned a decent living from his work as a lawyer, his salary as Sheriff-Depute, his wife's income, some revenue from his writing, and his share of his father's modest estate. After the younger Walter
6765-498: A novelist in 1814 did not mean he abandoned poetry. The Waverley Novels contain much original verse, including familiar songs such as "Proud Maisie" from The Heart of Mid-Lothian (Ch. 41) and "Look not thou on Beauty's charming" from The Bride of Lammermoor (Ch. 3). In most of the novels Scott preceded each chapter with an epigram or "motto"; most of these are in verse, and many are of his own composition, often imitating other writers such as Beaumont and Fletcher . Prompted by Scott,
6970-488: A poet and the tentative nature of Waverley ' s emergence, it is not surprising that he followed a common practice in the period and published it anonymously. He continued this until his financial ruin in 1826, the novels mostly appearing as "By the Author of Waverley " (or variants thereof) or as Tales of My Landlord . It is not clear why he chose to do this (no fewer than eleven reasons have been suggested), especially as it
7175-538: A prestige competitor to The Strand Magazine . Feeling that Griffith's serials were a poor fit for the new magazine, Pearson relegated him to writing ancillary materials for the publication. These included a March 1896 article harshly critical of US involvement in the construction of the Panama Canal and of the Monroe Doctrine more generally, titled "The Grave of a Nation's Honour", and the short story " A Genius for
7380-556: A raid on his Lowland host's cattle, it "seemed like a dream ... that these deeds of violence should be familiar to men's minds, and currently talked of, as falling with the common order of things, and happening daily in the immediate neighbourhood, without his having crossed the seas, and while he was yet in the otherwise well-ordered island of Great Britain." A more complex version of this comes in Scott's second novel, Guy Mannering (1815), which "set in 1781‒2, offers no simple opposition:
7585-434: A reasonably good flair for characterization, and an excellent storyteller's sense of pace" while acknowledging that he lacked "the literary touch". McNabb similarly opines that "what Griffith lacked in literary style, he made up for in imaginative and exuberant story telling", comparing him in this regard to Edgar Rice Burroughs . Moskowitz and Ellis both commend Griffith for portraying women as equals to men, commenting that he
7790-512: A return to the future war genre, a great quantity of such stories being produced towards the end of his life. The Lake of Gold , where the discovery of the titular reservoir results in a US syndicate conquering Europe, became the only one of Griffith's works to be serialized in a US magazine when it appeared in Argosy in eight instalments between December 1902 and July 1903, and was published in book format by White in 1903. The World Masters , where
7995-473: A scientific romance novel about a newlywed couple traversing the Solar System . In a first for Griffith, it was serialized in the upmarket Pearson's Magazine —albeit in an abridged form—in six parts under the title Stories of Other Worlds , January–July 1900. Pearson published the full story in book format under Griffith's original title in 1901. It was the last outright success of Griffith's career. Following
8200-530: A smaller scale, and while reviews were good, it was largely overshadowed by the release of Olga Romanoff . Griffith's next novel was the fantasy Valdar the Oft-Born , serialized 2 February – 24 August 1895 in Pearson's Weekly and published in book format by C. Arthur Pearson Ltd the same year. It is a tale of an immortal , an intentional imitation of Edwin Lester Arnold 's The Wonderful Adventures of Phra
8405-418: A society (on Earth or another planet) that has developed in wholly different ways from our own." There is a tendency among science fiction enthusiasts as their own arbiter in deciding what exactly constitutes science fiction. David Seed says it may be more useful to talk about science fiction as the intersection of other more concrete subgenres. Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "Science fiction
George Griffith - Misplaced Pages Continue
8610-408: A succession of poetasters had churned out conventional and obsequious odes on royal occasions." He sought advice from the 4th Duke of Buccleuch , who counselled him to retain his literary independence. The position went to Scott's friend, Robert Southey . Scott was influenced by Gothic romance , and had collaborated in 1801 with 'Monk' Lewis on Tales of Wonder . Scott's career as a novelist
8815-411: A successive shift to increasingly right -leaning sympathies, with anarchists being portrayed positively alongside socialists in his very earliest stories but quickly rejected afterwards, and the socialists in turn being displaced by capitalists in the later works. [...] a brief and simple service of thanksgiving for the victory which had wiped the stain of foreign invasion from the soil of Britain in
9020-408: A thousand copies were printed, but the work was an immediate success and 3,000 more were added in two further editions the same year. Waverley turned out to be the first of 27 novels (eight published in pairs), and by the time the sixth of them, Rob Roy , was published, the print run for the first edition had been increased to 10,000 copies, which became the norm. Given Scott's established status as
9225-744: A three-article series called "Election by Bullet" starting on 7 September 1895, after Griffith's return to England. During his trip Griffith also continued to write fiction, sending his works to England by boat. Six short stories were thus published under his pen name Levin Carnac in Pearson's Weekly in April and May 1895. Griffith later claimed to have found the source of the Amazon River ; Moskowitz speculates that this could have happened during this assignment. His time in Peru also inspired him to write Golden Star , which he began working on during his return voyage. The story
9430-495: A total estimated readership of at least 1 million), making it the world's most popular science fiction periodical . In 1984, William Gibson 's first novel, Neuromancer , helped popularize cyberpunk and the word " cyberspace ", a term he originally coined in his 1982 short story Burning Chrome . In 1986, Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold began her Vorkosigan Saga . 1992's Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson predicted immense social upheaval due to
9635-516: A trip to the Moon . Jules Verne was noted for his attention to detail and scientific accuracy, especially in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). In 1887, the novel El anacronópete by Spanish author Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau introduced the first time machine . An early French/Belgian science fiction writer was J.-H. Rosny aîné (1856–1940). Rosny's masterpiece
9840-575: A very palatable form... New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow... Many great science stories destined to be of historical interest are still to be written... Posterity will point to them as having blazed a new trail, not only in literature and fiction, but progress as well. In 1928, E. E. "Doc" Smith 's first published work, The Skylark of Space , written in collaboration with Lee Hawkins Garby , appeared in Amazing Stories . It
10045-623: A world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state . It influenced the emergence of dystopia as a literary genre . In 1926, Hugo Gernsback published the first American science fiction magazine , Amazing Stories . In its first issue he wrote: By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision... Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are always instructive. They supply knowledge... in
10250-470: Is Les Navigateurs de l'Infini ( The Navigators of Infinity ) (1925) in which the word astronaut, "astronautique", was used for the first time. Many critics consider H. G. Wells one of science fiction's most important authors, or even "the Shakespeare of science fiction". His works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of
10455-547: Is a fantasy wherein the title character, an Inca princess, and her brother enter suspended animation ahead of the Spanish conquest in the hopes of one day restoring their rule. It was serialized in Short Stories between 7 September and 21 December 1895, but not published as a book until Griffith had found a new publisher to replace the defunct Tower Publishing Company—Pearson having ceased to publish his works in book format. This
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#173309252174310660-482: Is as much myth as history, but the novel remains his best-known work, the most likely to be found by the general reader. Eight of the subsequent 17 novels also have medieval settings, though most are set towards the end of the era, for which Scott had a better supply of contemporaneous sources. His familiarity with Elizabethan and 17th-century English literature, partly resulting from editorial work on pamphlets and other minor publications, meant that four of his works set in
10865-487: Is festooned with turrets and stepped gabling. Through windows enriched with the insignia of heraldry the sun shone on suits of armour, trophies of the chase, a library of more than 9,000 volumes, fine furniture, and still finer pictures. Panelling of oak and cedar and carved ceilings relieved by coats of arms in their correct colours added to the beauty of the house. It is estimated that the building cost Scott more than £25,000 (equivalent to £2,600,000 in 2023). More land
11070-579: Is known to have read Griffith's works and is widely believed by scholars on Griffith to have been influenced by them. Scholars on Wells, by contrast, usually do not consider Griffith to have been an important influence. Wells's The War in the Air (1908) contains a passage that describes Griffith's The Outlaws of the Air as an "aeronautic classic"; Griffith's biographer Moskowitz takes this as evidence that Wells held professional respect for Griffith, while Harry Wood in The Wellsian: The Journal of
11275-509: Is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand!— If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell. Three years after The Lay Scott published Marmion (1808) telling a story of corrupt passions leading up as a disastrous climax to the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The main innovation involves prefacing each of
11480-619: Is often called the first great space opera . The same year, Philip Francis Nowlan 's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419 , also appeared in Amazing Stories . This was followed by a Buck Rogers comic strip , the first serious science fiction comic . Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a " future history " science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon . A work of unprecedented scale in
11685-503: Is one of the most influential examples of social science fiction , feminist science fiction , and anthropological science fiction . In 1979, Science Fiction World began publication in the People's Republic of China . It dominates the Chinese science fiction magazine market , at one time claiming a circulation of 300,000 copies per issue and an estimated 3–5 readers per copy (giving it
11890-560: Is related to fantasy , horror , and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres . Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Subgenres include hard science fiction , which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction , focusing on social sciences. Other notable subgenres are cyberpunk , which explores the interface between technology and society, and climate fiction , addressing environmental issues. Precedents for science fiction are argued to exist as far back as antiquity, but
12095-465: Is that his works were timely but not timeless; Moskowitz writes that "He has not survived because his literary output was for the most part a reflection, not a shaper, of the feelings of the period. He danced to the beat of the nearest drummer." The antiquarian bookseller Jeremy Parrott comments that the outbreak of World War I in 1914, along with the development of powered flight and emergence of submarine warfare , quickly rendered Griffith's visions of
12300-770: Is very strongly pro-British", and Wood comments that "Irishness could only exist for Griffith, it seems, as a constituent part of Britishness". Bleiler summarizes Griffith as "in ideology, the embodiment of what was wrong with the British Victorian Weltanschauung " . Science fiction genre Science fiction (sometimes shortened to SF or sci-fi ) is a genre of speculative fiction , which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology , space exploration , time travel , parallel universes , and extraterrestrial life . It often explores human responses to changes in science and technology. Science fiction
12505-452: Is weaponized—was published by White in May 1906, Griffith was largely confined to his bed. Griffith's last novel was The Lord of Labour , which he dictated on his deathbed against his doctor's advice. The story concerns a war between Britain and Germany, armed respectively with rifles firing explosive radium pellets and a ray that turns metals brittle. It was not published until nearly five years after his death, by White on 11 February 1911,
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#173309252174312710-537: Is what we point to when we say it." Forrest J Ackerman has been credited with first using the term "sci-fi" (analogous to the then-trendy " hi-fi ") in about 1954. The first known use in print was a description of Donovan's Brain by movie critic Jesse Zunser in January 1954. As science fiction entered popular culture , writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech " B-movies " and with low-quality pulp science fiction . By
12915-536: The Golden Age of Science Fiction . Science fiction has been called the "literature of ideas ", and continues to evolve, incorporating diverse voices and themes, influencing not just literature but film, TV, and culture at large. Besides providing entertainment it can also criticize present-day society and explore alternatives, and inspiration a " sense of wonder ". According to Isaac Asimov , "Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with
13120-501: The Battle of Melrose (1526). During the summers from 1804, Scott made his home at the large house of Ashestiel, on the south bank of the River Tweed, 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Selkirk. When his lease on this property expired in 1811, he bought Cartley Hole Farm, downstream on the Tweed nearer Melrose. The farm had the nickname of " Clarty Hole", and Scott renamed it "Abbotsford" after
13325-501: The County of Roxburgh , Scotland, on 22 April 1820; the title became extinct upon his son's death in 1847. Walter Scott was born on 15 August 1771, in a third-floor apartment on College Wynd in the Old Town , Edinburgh, a narrow alleyway leading from the Cowgate to the gates of the old University of Edinburgh . He was the ninth child (six having died in infancy) of Walter Scott (1729–1799),
13530-477: The Russian writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov presented a view of a future interstellar communist civilization and is considered one of the most important Soviet science fiction novels. In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein 's Starship Troopers marked a departure from his earlier juvenile stories and novels. It is one of the first and most influential examples of military science fiction , and introduced
13735-731: The Yorkshire estate of that name belonging to Scott's friend J. B. S. Morritt during the Civil War period, and The Lord of the Isles (1815), set in early 14th-century Scotland and culminating in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Both works had generally favourable receptions and sold well, but without rivalling the huge success of The Lady of the Lake . Scott also produced four minor narrative or semi-narrative poems between 1811 and 1817: The Vision of Don Roderick (1811, celebrating Wellington's successes in
13940-447: The information revolution . In 2007, Liu Cixin 's novel, The Three-Body Problem , was published in China. It was translated into English by Ken Liu and published by Tor Books in 2014, and won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel , making Liu the first Asian writer to win the award. Emerging themes in late 20th and early 21st century science fiction include environmental issues ,
14145-557: The occult —a subject he had previously touched upon in The Destined Maid in 1898— Denver's Double , which deals with hypnotism and spiritual possession, and Captain Ishmael , a story about an immortal that features the legendary Wandering Jew as a side character. They were published by F. V. White in April and Hutchinson in October, respectively; neither was serialized. Supernatural and otherwise fanciful elements also appeared in
14350-583: The use of poison gas . He is recognized as having correctly predicted the outbreak of the Boer War , though Moskowitz comments that this did not require particularly keen foresight. Ellis writes that while Griffith's repeated motif of a war between Britain and the US never came to pass, it has since been revealed that both countries did in fact plan for such an eventuality up until the lead-up to World War II . Beyond this, Moskowitz finds Griffith to exhibit "a fine imagination,
14555-427: The 1679 Covenanters as fanatical and often ridiculous (prompting John Galt to produce a contrasting picture in his novel Ringan Gilhaize in 1823); The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818) with its low-born heroine Jeanie Deans making a perilous journey to Richmond in 1737 to secure a promised royal pardon for her sister, falsely accused of infanticide; and the tragic The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), with its stern account of
14760-607: The 1790s for modern German literature. Recalling the period in 1827, Scott said that he "was German-mad." In 1796, he produced English versions of two poems by Gottfried August Bürger , Der wilde Jäger and Lenore , published as The Chase, and William and Helen . Scott responded to the German interest at the time in national identity, folk culture and medieval literature, which linked with his own developing passion for traditional balladry. A favourite book since childhood had been Thomas Percy 's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry . During
14965-457: The 1790s he would search in manuscript collections and on Border "raids" for ballads from oral performance. With help from John Leyden , he produced a two-volume Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1802, containing 48 traditional ballads and two imitations apiece by Leyden and himself. Of the 48 traditionals, 26 were published for the first time. An enlarged edition appeared in three volumes
15170-495: The 1822 visit of King George IV to Scotland . In spite of having only three weeks to work with, Scott created a spectacular, comprehensive pageant, designed not only to impress the King, but in some way to heal the rifts that had destabilised Scots society. Probably fortified by his vivid depiction of the pageant staged for the reception of Queen Elizabeth in Kenilworth he and his "production team" mounted what in modern days would be
15375-400: The 1970s, critics within the field, such as Damon Knight and Terry Carr , were using "sci fi" to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction. Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers." Robert Heinlein found even "science fiction" insufficient for certain types of works in this genre, and suggested
15580-459: The Air in Saturday Review in 1895, finding it passable but not living up to its potential. Wells quickly overtook Griffith in reputation, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction writes that Griffith attempted in vain to garner critical praise by covering different literary ground in order to get out of Wells's shadow. Comparisons have continued to be made long after both men's deaths. Wells
15785-550: The Apes (the original), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle , was released to popular and critical acclaim, its vivid depiction of a post-apocalyptic world in which intelligent apes dominate humans . In 1977, George Lucas began the Star Wars film series with the film now identified as " Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope . " The series, often called
15990-476: The Attention of Charles Bradlaugh ; Griffith won the case and was awarded £30 in damages. A friend of Griffith's wrote him a letter of introduction to the publisher C. Arthur Pearson . He got a job at the newly founded Pearson's Weekly in 1890, initially tasked by the editor Peter Keary with writing addresses on envelopes for the magazine's competitions. He made a good impression on Keary through his skill as
16195-465: The Canongate (1827). Crucial to Scott's historical thinking is the concept that very different societies can move through the same stages as they develop, and that humanity is basically unchanging, or as he puts it in the first chapter of Waverley that there are "passions common to men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of
16400-485: The Canongate to Castle Dangerous ). In his last years Scott marked up interleaved copies of these collected editions to produce a final version of what were now officially the Waverley Novels , often called his 'Magnum Opus' or 'Magnum Edition'. Scott provided each novel with an introduction and notes and made mostly piecemeal adjustments to the text. Issued in 48 smart monthly volumes between June 1829 and May 1833 at
16605-673: The Christmas number of Pearson's Weekly , respectively. Both stories would be incorporated into novels by Griffith towards the end of his life: the former into The Mummy and Miss Nitocris (1906) and the latter into A Mayfair Magician (1905); the science fiction scholar Brian Stableford comments that this was a forerunner to the concept of fix-up novels that would later become commonplace within science fiction. Griffith once again travelled abroad, this time to Australia, and unusually at his own expense rather than as part of an assignment. During his time there, he wrote A Honeymoon in Space ,
16810-672: The England of that period – Kenilworth (1821), The Fortunes of Nigel and Peveril of the Peak (1821), and Woodstock (1826) – present rich pictures of their societies. The most generally esteemed of Scott's later fictions, though, are three short stories: a supernatural narrative in Scots, "Wandering Willie's Tale" in Redgauntlet (1824), and "The Highland Widow" and "The Two Drovers" in Chronicles of
17015-563: The English familiar with the character of their gay and kind-hearted neighbours of Ireland, that she may be truly said to have done more towards completing the Union, than perhaps all the legislative enactments by which it has been followed up [the Act of Union of 1801]." Most of Scott's readers were English: with Quentin Durward (1823) and Woodstock (1826), for example, some 8000 of the 10,000 copies of
17220-575: The Extra-Terrestrial - 1983), war ( Enemy Mine - 1985), comedy ( Spaceballs - 1987, Galaxy Quest - 1999), animation ( WALL-E – 2008, Big Hero 6 – 2014), Western ( Serenity – 2005), action ( Edge of Tomorrow – 2014, The Matrix – 1999), adventure ( Jupiter Ascending – 2015, Interstellar – 2014), mystery ( Minority Report – 2002), thriller ( Ex Machina – 2014), drama ( Melancholia – 2011, Predestination – 2014), and romance ( Eternal Sunshine of
17425-407: The H. G. Wells Society instead interprets the apparent praise as backhanded. Wood argues that although the two were contemporaries chronologically, that term may be considered inappropriate when considering their ideological differences, with Griffith embodying Victorian ideals and Wells embracing Edwardian ones. Says Wood, "Where Wells critically analysed the present and offered shrewd insight on
17630-532: The Last Minstrel (1805), in medieval romance form, grew out of Scott's plan to include a long original poem of his own in the second edition of the Minstrelsy : it was to be "a sort of Romance of Border Chivalry & inchantment". He owed the distinctive irregular accent in four-beat metre to Coleridge 's Christabel , which he had heard recited by John Stoddart . (It was not to be published until 1816.) Scott
17835-803: The Literary Society in 1789 and was elected to the Speculative Society the following year, becoming librarian and secretary-treasurer a year after. After completing his law studies, Scott took up law in Edinburgh. He made his first visit as a lawyer's clerk to the Scottish Highlands, directing an eviction. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. He had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, who married Scott's friend Sir William Forbes, 7th Baronet . In February 1797,
18040-753: The Past and the Ancient, the Desire & the admiration of Permanence, on the one hand; and the Passion for increase of Knowledge, for Truth as the offspring of Reason, in short, the mighty Instincts of Progression and Free-agency , on the other." This is clear, for example, in Waverley , as the hero is captivated by the romantic allure of the Jacobite cause embodied in Bonnie Prince Charlie and his followers before accepting that
18245-614: The Peninsular Campaign, with profits donated to Portuguese war sufferers); The Bridal of Triermain (published anonymously in 1813); The Field of Waterloo (1815); and Harold the Dauntless (published anonymously in 1817). Throughout his creative life Scott was an active reviewer. Although himself a Tory he reviewed for The Edinburgh Review between 1803 and 1806, but that journal's advocacy of peace with Napoleon led him to cancel his subscription in 1808. The following year, at
18450-604: The Phoenician (1890)—such imitation being common in the literature of the time. It was fairly well received by audiences, albeit not as warmly as Phra the Phoenician had been. Griffith travelled to Peru on assignment in February 1895. Large portions of the South American continent were undergoing political turmoil at the time, and Griffith covered the various revolutionary factions in harshly critical terms, viewing them as aspiring oppressors. This appeared in Pearson's Weekly in
18655-597: The Prince Regent (the future George IV ) gave Scott and other officials permission in a Royal Warrant dated 28 October 1817 to conduct a search for the Crown Jewels (" Honours of Scotland "). During the Protectorate under Cromwell these had been hidden away, but had subsequently been used to crown Charles II . They were not used to crown subsequent monarchs, but were regularly taken to sittings of Parliament, to represent
18860-577: The Revolution (1893), which was serialized in Pearson's Weekly before being published in book format. He signed a contract of exclusivity with Pearson and followed it up with the likewise successful sequel Olga Romanoff (1894). Griffith was highly active as a writer throughout the 1890s, producing numerous serials and short stories for Pearson's various publications. He also wrote non-fiction for Pearson and went on various travel assignments. Among these were an 1894 publicity stunt in which he circumnavigated
19065-507: The Revolution and The War in the Air , characterizes both books as examples of what he terms "revolutionary sf", where technological revolution (here in the form of airships) brings about political revolution. Wells is generally regarded as the superior writer. Harris-Fain states that while both writers had "imaginative ideas and exciting stories", only Wells was able to incorporate "serious themes and philosophical speculations". Wood and Mollmann both comment that Wells more accurately predicted
19270-501: The Scotland represented in the novel is at once backward and advanced, traditional and modern – it is a country in varied stages of progression in which there are many social subsets, each with its own laws and customs." Scott's process of composition can be traced through the manuscripts (mostly preserved), the more fragmentary sets of proofs, his correspondence, and publisher's records. He did not create detailed plans for his stories, and
19475-618: The Scottish Borders: there he attended Kelso Grammar School , where he met James Ballantyne and his brother John , who later became his business partners and printers. As a result of his early polio infection, Scott had a pronounced limp. He was described in 1820 as "tall, well formed (except for one ankle and foot which made him walk lamely), neither fat nor thin, with forehead very high, nose short, upper lip long and face rather fleshy, complexion fresh and clear, eyes very blue, shrewd and penetrating, with hair now silvery white". Although
19680-457: The Spotless Mind – 2004, Her – 2013). Science fiction and television have consistently been in a close relationship. Television or television-like technologies frequently appeared in science fiction long before television itself became widely available in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The first known science fiction television program was a thirty-five-minute adapted excerpt of
19885-548: The States and Empires of the Moon (1657) and The States and Empires of the Sun (1662), Margaret Cavendish 's " The Blazing World " (1666), Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Ludvig Holberg 's Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (1741) and Voltaire 's Micromégas (1752). Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Somnium the first science fiction story; it depicts
20090-403: The US similarly establishes dominance by what The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes as a disintegrator ray , was published by John Long Ltd in 1903. The Stolen Submarine , about the then-ongoing Russo-Japanese War , was published by White in 1904. The year 1904 also saw the publication by John Long of A Criminal Croesus , where a war of South American unification is financed by
20295-518: The US until more than half a century after his death, and it would not be until 1902 that the first and only serial of his was published in a US magazine. The success of The Angel of the Revolution quickly led to the announcement of a sequel, The Syren of the Skies , in the 23 December 1893 issue of Pearson's Weekly . It was serialized in 32 instalments from 30 December 1893 to 4 August 1894, and published in hardcover format by Tower in November 1894 under
20500-510: The Worlds (1898). His science fiction imagined alien invasion , biological engineering , invisibility , and time travel . In his non-fiction futurologist works he predicted the advent of airplanes , military tanks , nuclear weapons , satellite television , space travel , and something resembling the World Wide Web . Edgar Rice Burroughs 's A Princess of Mars , published in 1912,
20705-545: The absent monarch, until the Act of Union 1707 . So the honours were stored in Edinburgh Castle, but their large locked box was not opened for more than 100 years, and stories circulated that they had been "lost" or removed. On 4 February 1818, Scott and a small military team opened the box and "unearthed" the honours from the Crown Room of Edinburgh Castle . On 19 August 1818 through Scott's effort, his friend Adam Ferguson
20910-459: The best-selling one until Wells's The War of the Worlds was released in book format in 1898. E. F. Bleiler , in the 1990 reference work Science-Fiction: The Early Years , comments that Griffith may be considered the first professional English-language science fiction author. He is credited by among others The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Don D'Ammassa with shaping the burgeoning future war genre, in particular by engaging more with
21115-511: The blind poet Thomas Blacklock , who lent him books and introduced him to the Ossian cycle of poems by James Macpherson . During the winter of 1786–1787, a 15-year-old Scott met the Scots poet Robert Burns at one of these salons, their only meeting. When Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem "The Justice of the Peace" and asked who had written it, Scott alone named the author as John Langhorne and
21320-500: The blood of the invader, and given the control of the destinies of the Western world finally into the hands of the dominant race on earth. On Griffith's social views, Stableford contrasts Griffith's gradually shifting views on economics with the observation that he consistently portrayed aristocrats positively from the very start. Wood writes that "Griffith's fiction celebrates social conservatism and British global predominance, preaching
21525-609: The bush. Griffith left the school after 15 months, out of economic necessity—his father had left behind less than £300, all of which went to his wife in the absence of a will—and joined a sailing ship as an apprentice at the age of 15. He deserted his ship in Melbourne after 11 weeks at sea, having found the experience highly instructive but the corporal punishment in particular gruelling. He then took various employments in Australia—chiefly manual labour, but also briefly serving as
21730-517: The city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books. He was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters . In 1783, his parents, believing he had outgrown his strength, sent him to stay for six months with his aunt Jenny at Kelso in
21935-467: The clergyman George Alfred Jones and Jeanette Henry Capinster Jones. The family, which also included Griffith's older brother, moved repeatedly during his childhood due to his father's career. They moved from Plymouth to Tring , Hertfordshire, in 1860, then on to two poverty-stricken parishes in the Greater Manchester area: first to Ashton-under-Lyne in 1861, and then to Mossley , where his father
22140-413: The concept of powered armor exoskeletons . The German space opera series Perry Rhodan , written by various authors, started in 1961 with an account of the first Moon landing and has since expanded in space to multiple universes , and in time by billions of years. It has become the most popular science fiction book series of all time. In the 1960s and 1970s, New Wave science fiction
22345-561: The conclusion that a war between the British and the Boers was on the horizon. He wrote Briton or Boer? about such a war based on his research, and it was serialized in Pearson's Weekly starting on 1 August 1896—three years before the outbreak of the real Boer War on 11 October 1899. The serial concluded on 9 January 1897, and in February 1897 it became the first of Griffith's works to be published in book format by F. V. White. It sold well, with an eighth edition going into print in May 1900. By
22550-402: The context of the last judgment with the introduction of a version of the " Dies irae " at the end. The work was an immediate success with almost all the reviewers and with readers in general, going through five editions in one year. The most celebrated lines are the ones that open the final stanza: Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This
22755-654: The country. The Angel of the Revolution was not, however, published in the United States in either book or serial format. Due to anti-American sentiments expressed in Griffith's work—in the story, the Constitution of the United States is physically destroyed and it is stated that "there were few who in their hearts did not believe the Republic to be a colossal fraud", for instance—US publishers wanted nothing to do with him or his stories. None of Griffith's books were published in
22960-506: The creation of microrobots and micromachinery , nanotechnology , smartdust , virtual reality , and artificial intelligence (including swarm intelligence ), as well as developing the ideas of "necroevolution" and the creation of artificial worlds. In 1965, Dune by Frank Herbert featured a much more complex and detailed imagined future society than had previously in most science fiction. In 1967 Anne McCaffrey began her Dragonriders of Pern science fantasy series. Two of
23165-477: The death of his father in January 1872, he started studying at a private school in Southport at the age of 14. There the limits of his home-schooling soon became apparent, the lack of any mathematical proficiency in particular, but through concerted effort he progressed to being the second-best pupil in his class. Then I went to another school, or perhaps I should put it more correctly if I said that I matriculated in
23370-746: The debts encumbering his estate were discharged shortly after his death. Scott was raised as a Presbyterian in the Church of Scotland. He was ordained as an elder in Duddingston Kirk in 1806, and sat in the General Assembly for a time as representative elder of the burgh of Selkirk. In adult life he also adhered to the Scottish Episcopal Church : he seldom attended church but read the Book of Common Prayer services in family worship. Scott's father
23575-534: The defects noted in Marmion largely absent. In some ways it is more conventional than its predecessors: the narrative is entirely in iambic tetrameters and the story of the transparently disguised James V (King of Scots 1513‒42) predictable: Coleridge wrote to Wordsworth : 'The movement of the Poem... is between a sleeping Canter and a Marketwoman's trot – but it is endless – I seem never to have made any way – I never remember
23780-409: The depiction of an unfamiliar society, while having no difficulty in relating to the characters. Scott is fascinated by striking moments of transition between stages in societies. Samuel Taylor Coleridge , in a discussion of Scott's early novels, found that they derive their "long-sustained interest " from "the contest between the two great moving Principles of social Humanity – religious adherence to
23985-472: The devoted aficionado or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is," and the lack of a "full satisfactory definition" is because "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction." Another definition comes from The Literature Book by DK and is, "scenarios that are at the time of writing technologically impossible, extrapolating from present-day science...[,]...or that deal with some form of speculative science-based conceit, such as
24190-453: The diaries of Samuel Pepys and Lord Byron , and he began keeping a journal over the period, which, however, would not be published until 1890, as The Journal of Sir Walter Scott . By then Scott's health was failing, and on 29 October 1831, in a vain search for improvement, he set off on a voyage to Malta and Naples on board HMS Barham , a frigate put at his disposal by the Admiralty. He
24395-431: The doctrine that he was preaching". In particular, Melchiori highlights Griffith's vision of the abolition of private property as incomplete, suggesting that the concept was so deeply ingrained in his worldview that he could not properly imagine its absence. Bleiler similarly describes Griffith's works as characterized by "ambivalence toward various social movements of the day". Stableford writes that Griffith's works reveal
24600-439: The episodes, ran from 1959 to 1964. It featured fantasy , suspense , and horror as well as science fiction, with each episode being a complete story. Critics have ranked it as one of the best TV programs of any genre . The animated series The Jetsons , while intended as comedy and only running for one season (1962–1963), predicted many inventions now in common use: flat-screen televisions , newspapers on
24805-456: The epistles did not link up with the narrative, there was too much antiquarian pedantry, and Marmion's character was immoral. The most familiar lines in the poem sum up one of its main themes: "O what a tangled web we weave,/ When first we practice to deceive" Scott's meteoric poetic career peaked with his third long narrative, The Lady of the Lake (1810), which sold 20,000 copies in the first year. The reviewers were fairly favourable, finding
25010-453: The extravagance down for later works drained his stories of their initial vibrancy. Michael Moorcock , in the introduction to the 1975 anthology Before Armageddon , calls Griffith "the first 'professional' science-fiction writer", inasmuch as he wrote primarily for money and in service of his employers, and comments that "any integrity that his earlier fiction had possessed was soon lost". The serial format has also been noted as detrimental to
25215-519: The feat in 65 days, starting on 12 March 1894 and finishing on 16 May. The tale of his journey was told in Pearson's Weekly in 14 parts between 2 June and 1 September 1894, bearing the title "How I Broke the Record Round the World". Around this time, he legally changed his name to George Griffith by deed poll . Pearson tasked Griffith with writing a new future-war serial to boost sales of Short Stories ,
25420-421: The fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day." It was one of Scott's main achievements to give lively, detailed pictures of different stages of Scottish, British, and European society while making it clear that for all the differences in form, they took the same human passions as those of his own age. His readers could therefore appreciate
25625-534: The final issue on 14 October 1893. The serial received positive reviews and the magazine saw a sharp increase in number of issues sold. Griffith's first son was born during the serialization on 13 June 1893 and named Alan Arnold Griffith , after two characters in The Angel of the Revolution . The London-based Tower Publishing Company quickly secured the book rights to The Angel of the Revolution , publishing an abridged hardcover edition in October 1893. The book version
25830-515: The first edition went to London. In the Scottish novels the lower-class characters normally speak Scots, but Scott is careful not to make the Scots too dense, so that those unfamiliar with it can follow the gist without understanding every word. Some have also argued that although Scott was formally a supporter of the Union with England (and Ireland) his novels have a strong nationalist subtext for readers attuned to that wavelength. Scott's new career as
26035-414: The first had been completed. Constable's faith was justified by the sales: the three editions published in 1808 sold 8,000 copies. The verse of Marmion is less striking than that of The Lay , with the epistles in iambic tetrameters and the narrative in tetrameters with frequent trimeters. The reception by the reviewers was less favourable than that accorded The Lay : style and plot were both found faulty,
26240-743: The first science fiction novel . Some of the stories from The Arabian Nights , along with the 10th-century The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Ibn al-Nafis 's 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus , are also argued to contain elements of science fiction. Written during the Scientific Revolution and later the Age of Enlightenment are considered true science-fantasy books. Francis Bacon 's New Atlantis (1627), Johannes Kepler 's Somnium (1634), Athanasius Kircher 's Itinerarium extaticum (1656), Cyrano de Bergerac 's Comical History of
26445-448: The following year. With many of the ballads, Scott fused different versions into more coherent texts, a practice he later repudiated. The Minstrelsy was the first and most important of a series of editorial projects over the next two decades, including the medieval romance Sir Tristrem (which Scott attributed to Thomas the Rhymer ) in 1804, the works of John Dryden (18 vols, 1808), and
26650-546: The future obsolete. The publishing house Collector's Guide Publishing further attributes it in part to the bankruptcy of the Tower Publishing Company in 1896 leaving his successful first three novels without a publisher thereafter. Griffith's failure to establish himself in the US has also been proposed as a contributing factor. Later appraisals of Griffith's skill as a writer have often found it to be lacking. Bleiler summarizes Griffith as "Historically important, but
26855-490: The future of warfare than did Griffith. Wood focuses on Wells depicting aerial warfare as insufficient to maintain control on the ground and draws comparisons to strategic bombing during World War II . Mollmann focuses on Wells portraying technological developments being adopted by all warring parties roughly at the same time—thus leading to more destructive warfare but not to anybody having a decisive technological advantage—and draws comparisons to World War I. There was, without
27060-435: The future, Griffith celebrated the present as the glorious inheritance of a reified Victorian past". Wood nevertheless identifies several similarities in their works, including a focus on speculative aeronautics with a grounding in contemporary science and the use of fiction as a vehicle for social commentary . Steven Mollmann [ Wikidata ] , in a 2015 Science Fiction Studies article comparing The Angel of
27265-440: The garrulous fluency of his later works". It almost seemed as though there was a conspiracy to see that his name was obliterated from the literary record. In his time, Griffith was both successful and influential in his home country. Following the publication of The Angel of the Revolution in 1893, he was the most popular science fiction writer in England until the appearance of H. G. Wells 's The Time Machine in 1895, and
27470-480: The genre, it describes the history of humanity from the present onwards across two billion years. In 1937, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction , an event that is sometimes considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction , which was characterized by stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress . The "Golden Age" is often said to have ended in 1946, but sometimes
27675-510: The great men who have loved dogs no one ever loved them better or understood them more thoroughly". The best known of Scott's dogs were Maida , a large stag hound reported to be his favourite dog, and Spice, a Dandie Dinmont terrier described as having asthma , to which Scott gave particular care. In a diary entry written at the height of his financial woes, Scott described dismay at the prospect of having to sell them: "The thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than any of
27880-503: The greatest of all universities—the world. I went to sea as an apprentice on a Liverpool lime-juicer ... In the seventy-eight days between Liverpool and Melbourne I learnt more of the world than I had learnt in fourteen years, but the methods of tuition didn't suit me. The learning was hammered in a little too hard, mostly with a rope's end and the softest part of a belaying pin, so I took French leave of that class-room and went to another; in plain English, I ran away from my ship and went up in
28085-484: The height of his poetic career, he was instrumental in establishing a Tory rival, The Quarterly Review to which he contributed reviews for the rest of his life. In 1813 Scott was offered the position of Poet Laureate . He declined, feeling that "such an appointment would be a poisoned chalice," as the Laureateship had fallen into disrepute due to the decline in quality of work suffered by previous title holders, "as
28290-472: The implications of the Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology , nanotechnology , and post-scarcity societies . Recent trends and subgenres include steampunk , biopunk , and mundane science fiction . The first, or at least one of the first, recorded science fiction film is 1902's A Trip to the Moon , directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès . It
28495-399: The importance of aerial warfare —but not timeless, and he is commonly regarded as a relatively poor writer, especially when compared to his main rival, Wells. He regularly incorporated his personal viewpoints into his fiction, and anti-American sentiments expressed in this way ensured that he never established a readership in the United States as publishers there would not print his works. He
28700-676: The last of several posthumous works by Griffith. Griffith died at his home in Port Erin on 4 June 1906, at the age of 48. The death certificate listed his cause of death as cirrhosis of the liver . Moskowitz notes that malaria can have a similar clinical presentation; Griffith had contracted malaria in Hong Kong, and the literary biographer Peter Berresford Ellis writes that it at least contributed to his deteriorating condition. Moskowitz nevertheless concludes—primarily from Griffith's self-description as "a waterlogged derelict"—that his early death
28905-428: The late 1890s, Griffith's career was in decline. Pearson had promised him the position of editor for a new publication with an international angle: The Passport , to be launched in 1897; the magazine never went to press. Griffith nevertheless continued his prolific writing, with his serial The Gold Magnet appearing in Short Stories starting on 16 October 1897 and the short story " The Great Crellin Comet " appearing in
29110-415: The late 1940s and the 1950s are included. In 1942, Isaac Asimov started his Foundation series , which chronicles the rise and fall of galactic empires and introduced psychohistory . The series was later awarded a one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series". Theodore Sturgeon 's More Than Human (1953) explored possible future human evolution . In 1957, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by
29315-401: The magazine's editor , and eventually took over as owner. At the time, Griffith was highly politically active, advocating for socialism and secularism . His political activism resulted in the paper being the target of a libel suit. Griffith decided against hiring a lawyer, opting instead to represent himself, and ended up losing the case which led to the paper going out of business. Griffith
29520-465: The maintenance of this status quo". McNabb identifies themes of social Darwinism , eugenics , and outright race war , while commenting that there is a notable lack of the antisemitism that often accompanied such stories. He writes that Griffith's works reinforced then-common beliefs among his readers about their own inherent superiority. Melchiori similarly says about Griffith's views on internationalism that "In theory he accepts it, but in practice he
29725-456: The modern genre primarily arose in the 19th and early 20th centuries when popular writers began looking to technological progress and speculation. Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein , written in 1818, is often credited as the first true science fiction novel . Jules Verne and H.G. Wells are pivotal figures in the genre's development. In the 20th century, expanded with the introduction of space operas , dystopian literature, pulp magazines , and
29930-543: The nave of Carlisle Cathedral ). After renting a house in Edinburgh's George Street , they moved to nearby South Castle Street. Their eldest child, Sophia, was born in 1799, and later married John Gibson Lockhart . Four of their five children survived Scott himself. His eldest son Sir Walter Scott, 2nd Baronet (1801–1847), inherited his father's estates and possessions: on 3 February 1825 he married Jane Jobson, only daughter of William Jobson of Lochore (died 1822) by his wife Rachel Stuart (died 1863), heiress of Lochore and
30135-631: The newly-widespread commodity of household electricity , published in Pearson's Magazine in March 1898; " Hellville, U.S.A. ", a story of a penal colony in Arizona that devolves into debauchery, published in Pearson's Weekly on 6 August 1898; and a series of detective stories appearing in Pearson's Magazine . "A Corner in Lightning" and "Hellville, U.S.A." were included in Gambles with Destiny alongside "A Genius for
30340-472: The novellas included in the first novel, Dragonflight , made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo or Nebula Award . In 1968, Philip K. Dick 's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published. It is the literary source of the Blade Runner movie franchise . In 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin was set on a planet in which the inhabitants have no fixed gender . It
30545-425: The occult in the later years of his life. Early in his career, Griffith was an outspoken socialist. He incorporated his political views into his fiction, and much has been written about what can be gleaned from his writings about his viewpoints. Melchiori writes that there are a number of inconsistencies in his debut novel The Angel of the Revolution which indicate to her that Griffith "had by no means fully absorbed
30750-617: The one most acclaimed by the public. Pearson would go on to publish Wells's The War of the Worlds in Pearson's Magazine April–December 1897 and The Invisible Man in Pearson's Weekly 12 June – 7 August 1897 as well as in an expanded book format in September 1897; the enormous success of the former meant Wells could work for whomever he pleased and name his price, and he would only write sporadically for Pearson thereafter. In 1896, Griffith went on another travel assignment for Pearson, this time to Southern Africa . He had been asked to assess
30955-603: The play RUR , written by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek , broadcast live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace studios on 11 February 1938. The first popular science fiction program on American television was the children's adventure serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers , which ran from June 1949 to April 1955. The Twilight Zone (the original series), produced and narrated by Rod Serling , who also wrote or co-wrote most of
31160-468: The political aspects, and Darren Harris-Fain [ Wikidata ] similarly writes that he played a key role in the development of the scientific romance genre. More modestly, Brian Stableford writes that Griffith contributed to the establishment of a new literary niche and laid the groundwork for more sophisticated exponents of the craft, but concludes that it is likely that somebody else would have played that part if Griffith had not done so. On
31365-598: The political situation and write about possible future developments, and was given free rein to travel the region to that end. Griffith thus travelled to the British colonies of Cape Colony and Natal , the British Bechuanaland Protectorate , the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State , and Portuguese Mozambique . He interviewed among others Transvaal President Paul Kruger , and came to
31570-447: The publication of George Tomkyns Chesney 's novella " The Battle of Dorking " (1871), and the rival magazine Black & White had just had a major success in the genre with the serialized novel The Great War of 1892 (1892) by Philip Howard Colomb . Pearson wanted to capitalize on both of these trends; Pearson's Weekly had from the start published short stories, and when the staff discussed who among them might try their hand at
31775-444: The quality of several of his works: they were written piece-by-piece to meet tight deadlines and provide cliffhangers , which resulted in uneven pacing, poor structure, and unsatisfying resolutions. Stableford further identifies Griffith's apparent alcoholism as a likely cause of declining quality over time. Among Griffith's strengths, a certain prescience is often cited. John McNabb [ Wikidata ] writes that "Griffith
31980-468: The reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology ." Robert A. Heinlein wrote that "A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method ." American science fiction author and editor Lester del Rey wrote, "Even
32185-498: The reading public. His last outright success was A Honeymoon in Space (1901), and he parted ways with Pearson shortly thereafter. With his health in decline, likely due to alcoholism, he continued writing prolifically up until his death at the age of 48. Griffith was both successful and influential as a writer at the peak of his career, but he has since descended into obscurity. Retrospective assessments have found his works to have been timely and prescient—in particular with regard to
32390-409: The reflections I have put down". Between 1805 and 1817 Scott produced five long, six-canto narrative poems, four shorter independently published poems, and many small metrical pieces. Scott was by far the most popular poet of the time until Lord Byron published the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812 and followed them up with his exotic oriental verse narratives. The Lay of
32595-464: The remarks by the figure of "the Author" in the Introductory Epistle to The Fortunes of Nigel probably reflect his own experience: "I think there is a dæmon who seats himself on the feather of my pen when I begin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. Characters expand under my hand; incidents are multiplied; the story lingers, while the materials increase – my regular mansion turns out
32800-451: The ruin of Smailholm Tower , the earlier family home. Here, he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny Scott and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that later marked much of his work. In January 1775, he returned to Edinburgh, and that summer with his aunt Jenny took spa treatment at Bath in Somerset, southern England, where they lived at 6 South Parade . In
33005-665: The series gained popularity through syndication and extraordinary fan interest . It became a very popular and influential franchise with many films , television shows , novels , and other works and products. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) led to six additional live action Star Trek shows: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), Voyager (1995–2001) , Enterprise (2001–2005), Discovery (2017–2024), Picard (2020–2023), and Strange New Worlds (2022–present), with more in some form of development. Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet FRSE FSAScot (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832),
33210-421: The six cantos with an epistle from the author to a friend: William Stewart Rose , The Rev. John Marriot , William Erskine , James Skene , George Ellis , and Richard Heber : the epistles develop themes of moral positives and special delights imparted by art. In an unprecedented move, the publisher Archibald Constable purchased the copyright of the poem for a thousand guineas at the beginning of 1807, when only
33415-452: The special Christmas issue of Pearson's Weekly the same year. The former was later published in book format as The Gold-Finder by F. V. White in 1898, and the latter was included in Griffith's short story collection Gambles with Destiny , published by White in 1899. He returned to the future war genre with The Great Pirate Syndicate , which was serialized in another of Pearson's magazines, Pick-Me-Up , 19 February – 23 July 1898. It
33620-410: The story in favour of publishing it directly in book format in April 1898. After this, Griffith wrote The Rose of Judah , about the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE. It was serialized in Pearson's Weekly 8 October 1898 – 28 January 1899 and published in book format by Pearson in 1899. He also continued writing short stories. Among these were " A Corner in Lightning ", wherein a man attempts to monopolize
33825-666: The subject of specific authors who were influenced by Griffith, Peter Berresford Ellis lists several including M. P. Shiel and Fred T. Jane , and Sam Moskowitz posits that George du Maurier drew direct inspiration from The Angel of the Revolution sequence for Trilby (1895) and The Martian (1898). The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction credits Griffith with the first known use of several terms, including " death ray ", "homeworld", and "space explorer". In spite of all this, Griffith and his works have now descended into obscurity, something several modern writers have remarked upon as being peculiar. A commonly cited explanation
34030-515: The term speculative fiction to be used instead for those that are more "serious" or "thoughtful". Some scholars assert that science fiction had its beginnings in ancient times , when the line between myth and fact was blurred. Written in the 2nd century CE by the satirist Lucian , A True Story contains many themes and tropes characteristic of modern science fiction, including travel to other worlds, extraterrestrial lifeforms , interplanetary warfare, and artificial life . Some consider it
34235-416: The threat of a French invasion persuaded Scott and many of his friends to join the Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Light Dragoons , where he served into the early 1800s, and was appointed quartermaster and secretary. The daily drill practices that year, starting at 5 a.m., indicate the determination with which the role was undertaken. Scott was prompted to take up a literary career by enthusiasm in Edinburgh in
34440-461: The time for such enthusiasms has passed and accepting the more rational, humdrum reality of Hanoverian Britain. Another example appears in 15th-century Europe in the yielding of the old chivalric world view of Charles, Duke of Burgundy to the Machiavellian pragmatism of Louis XI . Scott is intrigued by the way different stages of societal development can exist side by side in one country. When Waverley has his first experience of Highland ways after
34645-568: The time, the compositors would supply the punctuation.) He received proofs, also in batches, and made many changes at that stage, but these were almost always local corrections and enhancements. As the number of novels grew, they were republished in small collections: Novels and Tales (1819: Waverley to A Tale of Montrose ); Historical Romances (1822: Ivanhoe to Kenilworth ); Novels and Romances (1824 [1823]: The Pirate to Quentin Durward ); and two series of Tales and Romances (1827: St Ronan's Well to Woodstock ; 1833: Chronicles of
34850-399: The title Olga Romanoff . The story was another best-seller, though not quite reaching the heights achieved by its predecessor. It also received critical acclaim, with a reviewer for The Birmingham Chronicle declaring Griffith "the English Jules Verne". Parallel to the serialization of The Syren of the Skies , Griffith carried out a publicity stunt on behalf of Pearson by travelling around
35055-409: The turn of the century, Griffith and Pearson parted ways. Griffith's last piece of fiction writing published by Pearson was " The Raid of Le Vengeur " in Pearson's Magazine in February 1901 and his last non-fiction was an essay in Pearson's Magazine in November 1902. Griffith nevertheless continued writing prolifically, though he did not meet with much success. In 1901 he wrote two novels dealing with
35260-507: The two Bürger translations in a privately printed anthology, Apology for Tales of Terror . In 1800 Scott suggested that Ballantyne set up business in Edinburgh and provided a loan for him to make the transition in 1802. In 1805, they became partners in the printing business, and from then until the financial crash of 1826 Scott's works were routinely printed by the firm. Scott was known for his fondness of dogs , and owned several throughout his life. Upon his death, one newspaper noted "of all
35465-438: The winter of 1776, he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a water cure at Prestonpans the following summer. In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to prepare him for school and joined his family in their new house, one of the first to be built in George Square . In October 1779, he began at the Royal High School in Edinburgh (in High School Yards). He was by then well able to walk and explore
35670-409: The works of Jonathan Swift (19 vols, 1814). On a trip to the English Lake District with old college friends, he met Charlotte Charpentier (Anglicised to "Carpenter"), a daughter of Jean Charpentier of Lyon in France and a ward of Lord Downshire in Cumberland , an Anglican. After three weeks' courtship, Scott proposed and they were married on Christmas Eve 1797 in St Mary's Church, Carlisle (now
35875-508: The world in as little time as possible, emulating the fictional journey in Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). Pearson's Weekly had serialized Elizabeth Bisland 's 14 November 1889 – 30 January 1890 circumnavigation under the title "Round the World in 76 Days", starting with the magazine's very first issue on 26 July 1890 and finishing on 25 October. Pearson thought Griffith an ideal candidate for surpassing that accomplishment, given his experience travelling. Griffith accomplished
36080-453: The world in 65 days, an 1895 journey to South America where he covered the various revolutionary movements active there at the time, and an 1896 trip to Southern Africa that resulted in Griffith writing the novel Briton or Boer? (1897) anticipating the outbreak of the Boer War (1899–1902). Griffith's career declined in the latter part of the 1890s, and he was surpassed by H. G. Wells as the favourite science fiction writer of both Pearson and
36285-464: Was irreligious and in his youth advocated fiercely for secularism . Politically, Griffith was early an outspoken socialist , though he is believed to have gradually shifted towards more right -leaning sympathies later in his life. Socially, he has been described as embodying Victorian ideals, including social conservatism and staunch pro-British views. George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones was born in Plymouth , Devon, on 20 August 1857. His parents were
36490-405: Was a Freemason, being a member of Lodge St David, No. 36 (Edinburgh), and Scott also became a Freemason in his father's Lodge in 1801, albeit only after the death of his father. When Scott was a boy, he sometimes travelled with his father from Selkirk to Melrose, where some of his novels are set. At a certain spot, the old gentleman would stop the carriage and take his son to a stone on the site of
36695-623: Was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature , notably the novels Ivanhoe (1819), Rob Roy (1817), Waverley (1814), Old Mortality (1816), The Heart of Mid-Lothian (1818), and The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), along with the narrative poems Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). He had a major impact on European and American literature. As an advocate and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with his daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire . He
36900-549: Was a fairly open secret, but as he himself said, with Shylock , "such was my humour." Scott was an almost exclusively historical novelist. Only one of his 27 novels – Saint Ronan's Well – has a wholly modern setting. The settings of the others range from 1794 in The Antiquary back to 1096 or 1097, the time of the First Crusade , in Count Robert of Paris . Sixteen take place in Scotland. The first nine, from Waverley (1814) to A Legend of Montrose (1819), all have Scottish locations and 17th- or 18th-century settings. Scott
37105-417: Was a moderate commercial success, and F. V. White published it in book format in 1899. Feeling the need for a change of pace, Griffith then turned to writing historical novels. He next wrote The Virgin of the Sun , a fictionalized but non-fantastical account of Francisco Pizarro's conquest of Peru in the 1530s , inspired by his South American journey a few years prior. Unusually, Pearson forwent serializing
37310-405: Was able to draw on his unrivalled familiarity with Border history and legend acquired from oral and written sources beginning in his childhood to present an energetic and highly coloured picture of 16th-century Scotland, which both captivated the general public and with its voluminous notes also addressed itself to the antiquarian student. The poem has a strong moral theme, as human pride is placed in
37515-415: Was ahead of his contemporaries on that point. Barbara Arnett Melchiori, by contrast, finds Griffith to portray women as little more than the private property of men. During Griffith's lifetime, comparisons were frequently made between his works and those of H. G. Wells—to the chagrin of Wells, who viewed himself as producing literature of a higher class than Griffith. Wells reviewed Griffith's The Outlaws of
37720-444: Was appointed vicar in 1864. As the family's financial situation did not allow for the formal education of two sons, Griffith was home-schooled, with his mother teaching him French and his father Latin and Greek. He also spent considerable time exploring his father's extensive library, which was filled with the works of authors who would later serve as Griffith's literary influences, including Walter Scott and Jules Verne . Following
37925-404: Was appointed Deputy Keeper of the " Scottish Regalia ". The Scottish patronage system swung into action and after elaborate negotiations the Prince Regent granted Scott the title of baronet : in April 1820 he received the baronetcy in London, becoming Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet. After George's accession, the city council of Edinburgh invited Scott, at the sovereign's behest, to stage-manage
38130-401: Was attended with uncertainty. The first few chapters of Waverley were complete by roughly 1805, but the project was abandoned as a result of unfavourable criticism from a friend. Soon after, Scott was asked by the publisher John Murray to posthumously edit and complete the last chapter of an unfinished romance by Joseph Strutt . Published in 1808 and set in 15th-century England, Queenhoo Hall
38335-466: Was better versed in his material than anyone: he could draw on oral tradition and a wide range of written sources in his ever-expanding library (many of the books rare and some unique copies). In general it is these pre-1820 novels that have drawn the attention of modern critics – especially: Waverley , with its presentation of the 1745 Jacobites drawn from the Highland clans as obsolete and fanatical idealists; Old Mortality (1816) with its treatment of
38540-477: Was born in 1801, the Scotts moved to a spacious three-storey house at 39 North Castle Street, which remained his Edinburgh base until 1826, when it was sold by the trustees appointed after his financial ruin. From 1798, Scott had spent summers in a cottage at Lasswade , where he entertained guests, including literary figures. It was there his career as an author began. There were nominal residency requirements for his position of Sheriff-Depute, and at first he stayed at
38745-435: Was born with the surname 'Haliburton', and of the same's son the architect Decimus Burton . Walter became a member of the Clarence Club , of which the Burtons were members. A childhood bout of polio in 1773 left Scott lame, a condition that would greatly affect his life and writing. To improve his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders , at his paternal grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, by
38950-462: Was conscious of the possibilities of science and his technological descriptions were informed by contemporary debate". He is noted for predicting technologies that had not yet been invented ; among these are heavier-than-air aircraft , radar , sonar , and air-to-surface missiles . He is similarly credited with anticipating developments in warfare, in particular the coming importance of aerial warfare , but also in terms of military tactics including
39155-402: Was expanding his business. He launched a new all-serial magazine called Pearson's Story Teller on 9 October 1895, for which Griffith wrote the historical adventure story The Knights of the White Rose . Pearson discovered new talents such as Louis Tracy and attracted established ones to his ventures, and launched the monthly periodical Pearson's Magazine in January 1896, intended as
39360-404: Was influential on later filmmakers , bringing a different kind of creativity and fantasy . Méliès's innovative editing and special effects techniques were widely imitated and became important elements of the cinematic medium . 1927's Metropolis , directed by Fritz Lang , is the first feature-length science fiction film. Though not well received in its time, it is now considered
39565-432: Was known for its embrace of a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, and a highbrow and self-consciously " literary " or " artistic " sensibility . In 1961, Solaris by Stanisław Lem was published in Poland . The novel dealt with the theme of human limitations as its characters attempted to study a seemingly intelligent ocean on a newly discovered planet . Lem's work anticipated
39770-463: Was landed in England, Scott was transported back to die at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832. He was 61. Scott was buried in Dryburgh Abbey , where his wife had earlier been interred. Lady Scott had been buried as an Episcopalian; at Scott's own funeral, three ministers of the Church of Scotland officiated at Abbotsford and the service at Dryburgh was conducted by an Episcopal clergyman. Although Scott died owing money, his novels continued to sell, and
39975-448: Was likewise a success, receiving rave reviews and becoming a best-seller ; it was printed in six editions within a year and at least eleven editions in total, and a review in The Pelican declared Griffith to be "a second Jules Verne". Pearson responded by signing a contract of exclusivity with Griffith and providing him with a secretary for dictation . Griffith was then the most popular and commercially successful science fiction author in
40180-437: Was most likely the result of alcoholism . As corroborating evidence, Moskowitz cites an increasing prominence of alcohol in Griffith's later works and the appearance of something akin to Alcoholics Anonymous in one of his books. Stableford, who similarly concludes that Griffith likely started consuming alcohol excessively no later than the mid-1890s, additionally points to what he describes as "a seemingly alcoholic quality about
40385-437: Was not a success due to its archaic language and excessive display of antiquarian information. The success of Scott's Highland narrative poem The Lady of the Lake in 1810 seems to have put it into his head to resume the narrative and have his hero Edward Waverley journey to Scotland. Although Waverley was announced for publication at that stage, it was again laid by and not resumed until late 1813, then published in 1814. Only
40590-421: Was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory establishment , active in the Highland Society , long time a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829). His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the historical novel genre as an exemplar of European Romanticism . He became a baronet of Abbotsford in
40795-440: Was purchased until Scott owned nearly 1,000 acres (4.0 km ). In 1817 as part of the land purchases Scott bought the nearby mansion-house of Toftfield for his friend Adam Ferguson to live in along with his brothers and sisters and on which, at the ladies' request, he bestowed the name of Huntlyburn. Ferguson commissioned Sir David Wilkie to paint the Scott family resulting in the painting The Abbotsford Family in which Scott
41000-539: Was thanked by Burns. Scott describes the event in his memoirs, where he whispers the answer to his friend Adam , who tells Burns; another version of the event appears in Literary Beginnings . When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in moral philosophy (under Dugald Stewart ) and universal history (under Alexander Fraser Tytler ) in 1789–1790. During this second university spell Scott became prominent in student intellectual activities: he co-founded
41205-496: Was the custom then". Many have noted an apparent prioritization of quantity over quality especially in the later years of his career, and his earlier works are commonly regarded as broadly superior to his later ones, with some critics such as Stableford and Darko Suvin opining that he peaked as early as his debut novels in The Angel of the Revolution sequence. Stableford comments that Griffith's second novel Olga Romanoff left no room for further escalation in scope, and that toning
41410-408: Was the first of his three- decade -long planetary romance series of Barsoom novels , which were set on Mars and featured John Carter as the hero . These novels were predecessors to YA novels , and drew inspiration from European science fiction and American Western novels . In 1924, We by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin , one of the first dystopian novels, was published. It describes
41615-414: Was thus unemployed, and while he continued to pen political and religious pamphlets for a while as a freelancer , it was not enough to provide a living. In 1889 he was involved in another court case against the Member of Parliament and declared atheist Charles Bradlaugh , whom Griffith and William Stewart Ross had criticized in among other publications a pamphlet titled Ananias, The Atheist's God: For
41820-408: Was to be F. V. White [ Wikidata ] , introduced to him by William Le Queux —author of The Great War in England in 1897 (1894), and to whom Griffith had previously recommended Tower as a publisher. The story was published in book format under the title The Romance of Golden Star in June 1897; White would publish the majority of Griffith's books thereafter. At this time, Pearson
42025-423: Was welcomed and celebrated wherever he went. On his journey home he boarded the steamboat Prins Frederik going from Cologne to Rotterdam. While on board he had a final stroke near Emmerich . After local treatment, a steamboat took him to the steamship Batavier , which left for England on 12 June. By pure coincidence, Mary Martha Sherwood was also on board. She would later write about this encounter. After he
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