Richardson, Benjamin Ward
Entry updated 1 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1828-1896) UK physician and author, eminent in the former capacity, for which he was knighted in 1893. He published and edited many medical studies, and pioneered the development of safe anaesthetics; an offshoot of these activities was the nonfictional Hygeia: A City of Health (1876), which describes a Utopia whose hygiene is spotless. As an author of fiction, he is some sf interest for The Son of a Star: A Romance of the Second Century (1888 3vols), set in second-century Roman Britain, in which an advanced form of Transportation – a submarine – is used to convey some characters in the novel to a Utopian Island west of Britain, where peace dwells. [JC]
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson
born Somerby, Leicestershire: 31 October 1828
died London 21 November 1896
works
- Hygeia: A City of Health (London: Macmillan and Company, 1876) [nonfiction: hb/nonpictorial]
- The Son of a Star: A Romance of the Second Century (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1888) [published in three volumes: hb/nonpictorial]
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