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(1821-1882) French playwright and author whose sole novel, Voyage à Vénus (1865; trans Brian Stableford as Voyage to Venus 2011), may be the first sf tale to feature a plausibly described Rocket-powered Spaceship. An earlier effort like Elbert Perce's Gulliver Joi: His Three Voyages (1851), also couched as a Fantastic Voyage, does not present its version of a rocket-powered spaceship with anything like Eyraud's detail and strength of argument, during the presentation of which he cites the unlikely means of propulsion contrived by predecessors like Cyrano de Bergerac and Hans Pfaall (see Edgar Allan Poe). Eyraud's main focus, all the same, is on the Utopia his adventurer discovers on Venus, whose virtues are Satirically contrasted to life in France, where women are still oppressed (see Feminism), and playwrights like Eyraud are rudely treated. [JC]
born Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire, France: 21 April 1821
died Paris: 12 February 1882
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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 08:55 am on 13 December 2025.
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