I should mention a space opera I found before The World’s Last Wonder (1901). Venus Calling by Frank H. Bodle (1934). This was retrieved using the keyphrase ‘space ship’. Unfortunately, it was the only one in the to be continued database that appeared for that phrase.
Up until ‘space ship’, I’d been testing random words that, in my mind, represented space fiction, in the hope of stumbling upon a representative story. At this point in testing I was a little disappointed to discover that many of the words I associated with space fiction, space opera and science fiction were not used in the same way as what could be perceived as space opera over a hundred years ago. ‘Planetary’ was associated with astrology; ‘gravity’ associated with seriousness, and ‘invention’ with imagination. Science was commonly discussed by characters to describe ‘new’ inventions that contemporary readers might not even notice, such as anything that used the new magic of electricity.
On top of that, the newspaper ink had faded and the OCR process had created several sections that weren’t entirely readable. It meant that even if the original text contained the keyword, the OCR errors might mean that it isn’t detected.
Not only that, many newspaper columns split words with hyphens purely because they didn’t completely fit inside the column. A space saving exercise that meant searching for keywords became even harder.
For a database of over 40,000 stories, many of which had over 20 chapters each (or 20 sections serialised across multiple newspaper issues), with some chapters long enough to be split across newspapers as well, the idea that only one story contained ‘space ship’ was completely unexpected.
It’s not yet possible to create a complete summary of Venus Calling. Basically, characters create a space ship, decide on Venus as a destination, then get marooned there and must fight for their survival and a way to get back home. As soon as I’ve properly edited it and can see the detail in the story I’ll have a better summary. Hopefully in 2024.
