author
Katharine Fay Dewey
1865–1953
A little-known early American fantasist, she is remembered for Star People (1910), a dreamy novel that blends astronomy, mysticism, and first-contact wonder. Her work has drawn renewed attention for its unusual place in early science fiction.
1 Audiobook
Star People
by Katharine Fay Dewey
About the author
Born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1865, Katharine Fay Dewey was an American author whose surviving reputation rests mainly on a single novel, Star People. Reference sources describe it as her only novel and note that it imagines contact between human investigators and an extraterrestrial, utopian civilization.
Star People, published in 1910, sits in an interesting corner of early speculative fiction: part cosmic fantasy, part philosophical tale, and part first-contact story. Modern readers and genre historians have revisited the book because it approaches science fiction through wonder and spiritual imagination rather than machinery or adventure.
Dewey died in Massachusetts in 1953. Reliable biographical details about her life appear to be limited, which makes her feel a bit elusive today, but that also adds to the curiosity around a writer who left behind one distinctive and unusual work.