Regardless
of preferred genre, most readers know the names Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert
Louis Stevenson, and H. Rider Haggard.
On the strength of Jekyll and Hyde, Captain Nemo, the lost worlds of
Africa, and Martians attacking Earth, they are considered pioneers, and by
default, stanchions of science fiction and fantasy of the late 19th century. And all are men. Who were the women writing speculative
fiction at the time? Unless the reader
is a connoisseur of 19th and early 20th century genre, their answer is
probably like mine: don’t know even if there were women writing spec fic. Having just finished editor Mike Ashley’s The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction
by Women Writers (2015, Dover
Publications), I have been educated: there were women writing in that
period, and not just writing, but producing stories of similar, groundbreaking
quality as Verne, Wells, Stevenson, Haggard, and the rest.
The Feminine Future anthologizes fourteen
short stories published between 1876 and 1930 by women writers. Having read this byline, my initial concern
was that Ashley had little material to work with, and therefore selected
stories with only the thinnest of connections to sf. My concerns were very misplaced. The stories
selected are undeniably genre. The
speculative elements not minor or incidental, they occupy fundamental positions
or are the foundations upon which the stories are built. Whether it be robots or alternate history,
shifts in time or social experiments, each possesses a recognizable trope or
element still in use today, including some that are arguably their first
appearance in print.
