author

Gregory Casparian

1856–1942

Best known for a single, startlingly forward-looking 1906 novel, this Turkish-Armenian immigrant brought together art, speculation, and a surprisingly modern view of gender and love. Though little is known about his life, his work has earned lasting interest as an early landmark of queer science fiction.

1 Audiobook

An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future

An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future

by Gregory Casparian

About the author

Gregory Casparian (1856–1942) was a Turkish-Armenian-born artist, painter, photoengraver, and author. Sources agree that he emigrated to the United States in 1877 and settled in New York, where he built his life and career in the arts.

He is known for An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future (1906), the only published work currently attributed to him. The novel imagines a future world shaped by politics, science, and social change, and it has drawn renewed attention for its unusually direct treatment of love between women and for themes that readers now connect with early queer and transgender speculative fiction.

Because so little biographical material survives, Casparian remains a somewhat mysterious figure. That mystery is part of his appeal: a little-known artist whose single novel reached far beyond the conventions of its time and found a new audience many decades later.