Work from 1616 is 'the first ever science fiction novel'

A 400-year-old story about a man who journeys to a mysterious royal wedding is “the first science fiction novel”, long predating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and other, later writers considered pioneers, according to the award-winning writer John Crowley. In his opinion, the genre starts with Johann Valentin Andreae’s 1616 work The Chemical Wedding, a new version of which he is publishing in November.

Experts in the field were delighted at the news of the book’s reissue – but are not entirely convinced by Crowley’s claim. “If the modern novel as such is 17th century and is a ‘thing’, then it cannot qualify as the first SF novel. If, on the other hand, any lengthy tale is a novel, surely Utopia [published in 1516] is the first SF novel,” said professor Farah Mendlesohn, a science fiction academic. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not fascinating.”

“There are lots of 16th-century utopias and dystopias, which I’d say have a better claim to being SF than Chemical Wedding – Thomas More’s Utopia was first published in 1516 after all,” said Adam Roberts, professor at Royal Holloway and science fiction novelist. “Alchemy isn’t science, it’s magic: so it’s a stretch to call it ‘science fiction’. Nor is this the first ‘alchemical novel’ and it certainly isn’t the first magical story – there are plenty of alchemical and magical romances throughout the medieval period and further back.”