Back to entry: vaughan_herbert_m | Show links blue
(1870-1948) Welsh local historian, bibliographer and author, administratively involved in World War One though not in active service. He is of sf interest primarily for two novels. Meleager: A Fantasy (1916) is set on a miniature version of Earth and the Solar System (see Great and Small), where a Eugenic Dystopia ensures the death of defective children, and women have no rights (see Women in SF). The Dial of Ahaz (1917) posits a universe full of versions of Earth, each of which varies imperceptibly from all the others; those who wish to relive their lives need only travel to another Earth, though for only a limited time. The story is mostly set on a second Earth indistinguishable from ours. It may be that Vaughan was unfamiliar with the concept of the Parallel World, an imaginative device that would not properly become part of the SF Megatext for some years. The stories assembled in Nephelococcygia; Or, Letters from Paradise (coll 1929) are fantasy. [JC]
born Penmorfa, Llangoedmor, Cardigan, Wales: 27 July 1870
died Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales: 31 July 1948
works
collections
links
Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight.
Accessed 02:04 am on 25 April 2024.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/vaughan_herbert_m>