Percy Greg (7 January 1836

Bury Bury may refer to: *The burial of human remains *-bury, a suffix in English placenames Places England * Bury, Cambridgeshire, a village * Bury, Greater Manchester, a town, historically in Lancashire ** Bury (UK Parliament constituency) (1832–19 ...

– 24 December 1889,

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

), son of

William Rathbone Greg William Rathbone Greg (1809 – 15 November 1881) was an English essayist. Life Born in Manchester, the son of Samuel Greg, the creator of Quarry Bank Mill, and Hannah Greg, he was brother to Robert Hyde Greg and the junior Samuel Greg. ...

, was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

writer. Percy Greg, like his father, wrote about

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

, but his views were violently reactionary: his ''History of the United States to the Reconstruction of the Union'' (1887) can be said to be more of a

polemic Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

, rather than a

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

. His ''

Across the Zodiac ''Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record'' (1880) is a science fiction novel by Percy Greg, who has been credited as an originator of the sword and planet subgenre of science fiction. Plot The book details the creation and use of a ...

'' (1880) is an early

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) 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 unive ...

novel, said to be the progenitor of the sword-and-planet genre. For that novel, Greg created what may have been the first

artistic language An artistic language, or artlang, is a constructed language designed for aesthetic and phonetic pleasure. Language can be artistic to the extent that artists use it as a source of creativity in art, poetry, calligraphy or as a metaphor to address ...

that was described with linguistic and grammatical terminology.Ekman, F: "The Martial Language of Percy Greg", ''Invented Languages'' Summer 2008, p. 11
Richard K. Harrison
, 2008 It also contained what is possibly the first instance in the English language of the word "

Astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

". In 2010
crater on Mars
was named GregGreg Crater data
from the International Astronomical Union in recognition of his contribution to the lore of Mars.Blue, Jennifer,

21 June 2010

Bibliography

*''

'' (1880) *''History of the United States to the Reconstruction of the Union'' (1887)

References

External links

* * 1836 births 1889 deaths People from Bury, Greater Manchester {{UK-writer-stub