a timeline of british science fiction
1500
1505
Amerigo Vespucci publishes New World.
1506
More and Erasmus collaborate on a translation into Latin of Lucian's Dialogues.
1507
Amerigo Vespucci publishes Four Voyages.
1509
Erasmus publishes In Praise of Folly.
Henry VIII ascends the throne.
1510
More publishes a translation of The Life of John Picus Erle of Myrandula.
More enters Parliament and is appointed under-sheriff of London.
1515
Erasmus publishes The Education of a Christian Prince.
More travels to Bruges on a diplomatic mission, meets Peter Giles in Antwerp.
1516
Utopia published in Louvain.
1517
More appointed to the King's Council.
Martin Luther nails 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg Castle.
1520
1521
A Defence of the Seven Sacraments by Henry VIII (assisted by More) wins the Papal title 'Defender of the Faith'.
1523
More's Responsio ad Lutherum.
1529
More's A Dialogue Concerning Heresies.
More appointed Lord Chancellor.
1530
1532-64
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais.
1536
Thomas More executed.
1540
1543
De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Nicholas Copernicus.
1550
1552
I Mondi by Anton Francesco Doni.
1558
Accession of Elizabeth I.
1560
1561
Francis Bacon born in London.
1562
Francis Godwin born in Hannington, Northamptonshire.
1570
1571
Battle of Lepanto begins slow decline of Ottoman Empire.
1573
12-year-old Francis Bacon attends Trinity College, Cambridge.
1574
A Right Excellent and Pleasaunt Dialogue, betwene Mercury and an English Souldier by Barnaby Rich.
William Bullein incorporates a utopia about 'Taerg Natrib' into his plague book A dialogue bothe pleasaunt and pietifull, wherein is a godlie regiment against the feuer pestilence with a consolation and comforte againste death.
1576
Prognostication Everlasting by Thomas Digges.
1579
A Pleasant dialogue betweene a lady called Listra, and a pilgrim, concerning the governmentand common weale of the great province of Crangalor by Thomas Nicholas.
1580
Siquila, Too Good to Be True by Thomas Lupton.
'On Cannibals' by Michel de Montaigne.
1581
The Second Part and Knitting Up of the Book Entitled, Too Good to Be True by Thomas Lupton.
Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney.
1587
News of the disappearance of the colony at Roanoke, Virginia, reaches England.
1588
Probable first performance of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.
Defeat of the Spanish Armada.
1589
The principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation by Richard Hakluyt.
1590-96
The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spencer.
1591
John Lyly’s play Endymion, the Man in the Moone is performed.
1595
Michael Drayton’s poem ‘Endimion and Phoebe’ (later revised as ‘The Man in the Moone’, 1606).
1597