James De Mille

Biography

James De Mille (1833–1880) was a Canadian novelist and professor who produced one of the most remarkable works of early Canadian speculative fiction. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, De Mille was educated at Acadia College and Brown University before becoming a professor of rhetoric and history at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He was a prolific and popular writer during his lifetime, producing adventure novels, comedies, and children’s fiction. His most significant work, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, was published posthumously in 1888 and is now recognized as a pioneering lost-world novel and utopian satire. The novel anticipates many themes of later science fiction, including encounters with unknown civilizations, satirical inversions of Western values, and exploration of alternative social structures. De Mille’s combination of adventure narrative with philosophical speculation places him among the important precursors of the science fiction genre.