User:Chavey/Ancient

Ancient Works of Speculative Fiction
This is an attempt to catalog the oldest works of speculative fiction, using ISFDB listings, standard bibliographic sources, WorldCat, and a few other resources. This includes only fiction: It does not include non-fiction, or art; but occasionally includes works that the authors or readers might have viewed as non-fiction, but which are fantastical (see the criteria below). With many of the older works, dates given are best available estimates, and are not claimed to be precise.

Inclusion criteria: Deciding which ancient works justify inclusion includes consideration of certain issues that aren't major concerns with more modern literature. We outline some of those issues here, and how they have been resolved:

 Myths and legends: Stories which are believed to be true, either by the writer or by the readers, are generally not included. This includes stories about, say, Greek and Roman gods during the time that these were viewed as true. By the time of Ovid's Metamorphosis, for example, the Romans no longer believe in such stories, and hence they had become pure fantasy for them. Lester del Rey views The Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2150-2000 BCE) as science fiction because it features a flood scene that in some ways resembles works of apocalyptic science fiction, and Wikipedia views it as "fantastic literature". But current scholarship suggests that this story may be oral tradition descended from the filling of the Black Sea when the Mediterranean sea flooded into in around 5000 BCE. As a likely "legend", this story is not included. This criteria eliminates all religious works from consideration, even works such as the Biblical "Revelations" which shares much in common with apocalyptic fantasies.  Magic of the Gods: Magic used by the gods, when the people believe in those gods, is not cause for inclusion in this category. However, when the gods give magical items to humans, or give humans magical powers, that becomes grounds for inclusion.  Wizards, witches, and ghosts: During much of the history covered by this list, "average" people believed in the existence of wizards, witches, and ghosts. The existence of such characters in a story is not grounds for inclusion unless the stories include specific instances of these characters doing "impossible" things. Thus a ghost appearing to someone is generally not enough to justify inclusion, but that ghost showing up and directing the person to the missing location of their body would be.  Fantastic Beasts: Many stories that include strange beasts and people are known to come from distorted tales of imperfectly understood observations. Thus the centaur legend may have come from people who did not ride horses seeing invaders riding horses from a distance. The unicorn may have come from stories of the rhinoceros seen by African travelers, or from misunderstood fossil remains. Headless men carrying their heads in their arms may come from the Indonesian orangutans. Such stories might be excluded if the author appears to be trying to write the truth, or included if it seems that they are trying to write a fantastical story.  Anthropomorphized animals and objects: The use of talking animals, such as in Aesop's Fables and similar stories, or talking objects, such as the clouds in Aristophanes' play "The Clouds" (423-417 BCE), where they are simply stand-ins for human characters or narrators, is not sufficient for inclusion.  They thought it was true: In most cases, if the teller of the story appears to believe it its truth, then we classify it as non-fiction and exclude it. For example, in his poem "On The Nature Of Things", the Roman Lucretius (1st c. BC) accepted that other worlds containing different life forms. A century later, Seneca mentions fellow-Stoics’ belief that the sun was also inhabited. Both are interesting examples of "proto-science fiction", but are not included here. Occasionally, works on alchemy or astrology are included in lists of "fantasies", but are excluded here under this clause. In some cases though, we may include such a story when it is important enough as a precursor to specific themes in speculative fiction. This applies, for example, to Plato's descriptions of Atlantis (360 BCE), and Homer's stories of the Amazons (although there is also debate as to whether Homer viewed his stories as true). 

Within these limits, I have attempted to identify bibliographic works that include significant numbers of such ancient works, including those already in the ISFDB, and incorporated them into the listing below. This listing includes all works in the following sources, up to the date listed:

Current ISFDB listings (through 1625 so far); Bleiler's "Science-Fiction: The Early Years" (through 1600 so far). Gunn's "The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" (not started yet) Nicholson's "Voyages to the Moon" (not started yet) Pringle's "The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy" (not started yet) Wikipedia's articles on History of Science Fiction (completed), History of Fantasy (to do), History of Horror Literature (to do), History of Alternate History Literature (to do), History of Speculative Fiction and Timeline of Science Fiction (to do). Wikipedia's articles on Moon Landings in Fiction and Moon in Fiction::Science Fiction. <li>Various other web pages devoted to "History of " the genre, although works from such sources are always viewed as "nominations" for inclusion. Some helpful ones include Barry Baldwin. (Ongoing.) </ul>

1800 C.E. to 1850 C.E. (collecting notes)
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