author
Florence Carpenter Dieudonné
1850–1927
An early American speculative fiction writer, she is best remembered for Rondah, or Thirty-Three Years in a Star, an 1887 novel that sends its characters on a wonderfully imaginative journey through space. Her work stands out as part of the adventurous, experimental edge of nineteenth-century fiction.
1 Audiobook
Rondah; or, thirty-three years in a star
by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné
About the author
Born Florence Lucinda Carpenter on September 25, 1850, in Munnsville, New York, she was raised in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She began writing with poems that appeared in a local newspaper and in Peterson's Magazine, building a literary life before turning to longer fiction.
She is chiefly known today for Rondah, or Thirty-Three Years in a Star (1887), a work often noted as an early example of American speculative fiction. The novel mixes space travel, fantasy, and social imagination in a way that feels strikingly inventive for its time.
After her marriage, she wrote as Florence Carpenter Dieudonné. She died on April 17, 1927, and is now remembered mainly for the bold originality of her science-fantasy writing and her place among early women writers of imaginative fiction.