Trench, Melesina
Entry updated 12 August 2018. Tagged: Author.
(1768-1827) Irish author, born Melesina Chevenix; she used her married name for all her writings. She is of sf interest for a Proto SF Fantastic Voyage in verse, Laura's Dream; Or, the Moonlanders (1816 chap), whose narrator travels to the Moon in a dream, an expedient perhaps specifically modeled on Johannes Kepler's Somnium (1634), a text which seems to have influenced her ultimately very different work. Laura discovers the Moon to be inhabited by a human-like species which lives backward, from old age to radiant Arcadian childhood; the sexes are very distinct, with Flying men and subordinate women characterized by their taste in clothes (see Women in SF), and the culture is monogamous. Laura falls in love with an already espoused Moonlander, and is sent back instantly to Earth, where she awakens. [JC]
Melesina Trench
born Dublin, Ireland: 22 March 1768
died Malvern, Worcestershire: 27 May 1827
works (selected)
- Laura's Dream; Or, the Moonlanders (London: J Hatcher, 1816) [poem: chap: binding unknown/]
about the author
- Katharine Kittredge. "Wingless Women Living Backwards on the Moon: Melesina Trench's The Moonlanders" (March 2007 Science Fiction Studies) [vol 34, part 1: #101: issue also contains text of poem: mag/]
links
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