Robert Duncan Milne (7 June 1844–15 December 1899) was a late-19th century
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
writer whose work was published primarily in newspapers of the time, and the magazine ''
The Argonaut
''The Argonaut'' was a newspaper based in San Francisco, California from 1878 to 1956. It was founded by Frank Somers, and soon taken over by Frank M. Pixley, who built it into a highly regarded publication. Under Pixley's stewardship it was ...
''. He was born in Cupar, Scotland, and moved to San Francisco in the 1860s, where he remained until his death.
Milne is considered one of the earliest full-time science fiction writers in America.
His stories explored speculative concepts such as climate catastrophe, cryogenics, and drone warfare, making making him a successor to writers like Jules Verne and a precursor to those such as H.G. Wells. Despite his forward-thinking themes, much of his work remained obscure and was unavailable for long after his death.
Rediscovery
Milne was rediscovered by science fiction historian
Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz (June 30, 1920 – April 15, 1997) was an American writer, critic, and historian of science fiction.
Biography
As a child, Moskowitz greatly enjoyed reading science fiction pulp magazines. As a teenager, he organized a branch of ...
, who collected some of his work in the 1980 volume ''
Into the Sun & Other Stories''. In January 2025, Bloomsbury Academic published ''The Essential Robert Duncan Milne: Stories by the Lost Pioneer of Science Fiction'',
the most comprehensive collection of Milne's work to date. Edited by Dr. Keith Williams and Ari Brin, the anthology reflects eight years of archival research and renewed interest into Milne’s contributions to the early development of science fiction.
Bibliography
*
*Williams, Keith, and Brin, Ari, eds. (2025)
''The Essential Robert Duncan Milne: Stories by the Lost Pioneer of Science Fiction''.London: Bloomsbury Academic.
*(fr) Histoire d'un visionnaire oublié, 2024 : a biography of Robert Duncan Milne imagined by Augusta Boveresse.
References
External links
The Essential Robert Duncan Milneat Bloomsbury Publishing
Article about Robert Duncan Milne's Science Fiction stories*
*
* Robert Duncan Milne fan blog: http://theeidoloscope.blogspot.co.uk/
American science fiction writers
1844 births
1899 deaths
Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area
Scottish science fiction writers
American male short story writers
American male novelists
19th-century American novelists
19th-century American short story writers
19th-century American male writers
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