Thomas Erskine is likely to be the first Scot to have written a science fiction novel. It’s called Armata: a Fragment and was published in 1817.
Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine, (10 January 1750 – 17 November 1823) was a British lawyer and politician who served as Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom between 1806 and 1807 in the Ministry of All the Talents.
In his retirement, as well as fighting for animal rights, Greek independence, and the defence of Queen Caroline, he wrote Armata, a strange tale of a man sailing to the moon upon a highway of ocean.
Erskine was born in a tenement at the head of South Grays Close on the High Street in Edinburgh, near the Museum of Childhood, if you’re looking for the site.
He has a full Wikipedia entry if you want to read more about the man. Seems to have been a busy chap, in the same mould as John Buchan.
If you want to read Armata, you can do so at the Public Domain Review, where they have a full scan of the original book. I haven’t found an edition yet of a newly typeset version – maybe something for us to do at Shoreline of Infinity / SF Caledonia?
I’ll see if I can’t create a sample for SF Caledonia.
A point: Armata was published a year before Frankenstein by Mary Shelley…
