author
Dr. Dioscorides
1812–1885
A nineteenth-century Dutch scientist writing under the pen name Dr. Dioscorides, he imagined the future with a curious, playful mind. His fiction stands out for mixing scientific learning with early speculative storytelling.
1 Audiobook
Anno 2070: Een blik in de toekomst
by Dr. Dioscorides
About the author
Best known under the pseudonym Dr. Dioscorides, Pieter Harting (1812–1885) was a Dutch biologist, physician, and prolific scientific writer. Sources on Project Gutenberg and the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction identify Dr. Dioscorides as Harting's pen name, used for his future-facing fiction, including Anno Domini 2071.
Harting's career reached far beyond literature. Reference sources describe him as a polymath whose work spanned biology, medicine, geology, microscopy, hydrology, botany, and biostratigraphy, and note that he taught at Utrecht and became known for both research and science popularization.
What makes his work especially interesting for modern readers is the way he brought a scientist's imagination into narrative form. Writing as Dr. Dioscorides, he helped shape an early kind of science fiction in Dutch literature, using the novel to wonder how society, knowledge, and daily life might change in centuries to come.