Across the Zodiac: the Story of a Wrecked Record, deciphered, translated and edited by Percy Greg; 1880; Trübner, London
Centering around the creation of a substance called “apergy”, a form of anti-gravitational energy, Percy Gregg’s novel details a flight to Mars taken in 1830. They discover the planet to be inhabited by diminutive beings who, convinced that life couldn’t exist any where else apart from on their world, refuse to believe that the unnamed narrator is actually from Earth – deciding instead he is an unusually tall Martian from some remote corner of their planet. The book is notable as containing what is probably the first alien language in any work of fiction to be described with linguistic and grammatical terminology. It also contains what is possibly the first instance in the English language of the word “Astronaut”, which features as the name of the narrator’s spacecraft. In 2010 a crater on Mars was named Greg in recognition of his contribution to the lore of Mars.
Open Library link
Letters From a Cat (1879) | Castaway on the Auckland Isles: A Narrative of the Wreck of the "Grafton," (1865) | Infant's Cabinet of Birds and Beasts (1820) | Old French Fairytales (1920) |
Armata: a fragment (1817) | An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism (1803) | The Medical Aspects of Death, and the Medical Aspects of the Human Mind (1852) | Quarles' Emblems (1886) |
Cat and bird stories from the "Spectator" (1896) | Wonderful Balloon Ascents (1870) | The Book of Topiary (1904) | The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (1899) |
English as She is Spoke (1884) | The Danger of Premature Interment (1816) | The Last American (1889) | Pirates (1922) |
Napoleon's Oraculum (1839) | Horse Laughs (1891) | Hydriotaphia/Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) | Across the Zodiac: the Story of a Wrecked Record (1880) |