Science Fiction Periods (or Eras, or Ages)

One topic of academic discussion in Science Fiction circles is how to divide the periods in which it was written. Doing this makes great sense when SF was in its infancy. There were not so many authors writing different kinds of SF. A few influential editors dictated much of the style SF had to be written in for it to see publication. After 1976 or so, SF, if it's to be divided and written about in parts, is better treated by sub-genres. This is because by this time there were so many vehicles for publishing SF, and so many different styles, that defining SF by decade becomes meaningless.

The periods are actually designated by science fiction historians as follows:

1920-1937:     Pulp era
1938-1946:     Early (or First) Golden Age
1947-1959:     Later (or Second) Golden Age

Here's one reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction

One can take it a bit further:

1805-1919:     Early science fiction
1920-1930:     1920s Early Pulp
1931-1937:     1930s True Pulp
.....
1960-1976     New Wave science fiction

The distinction between Pulp eras is Isaac Asimov's (Before the Golden Age: A Science Fiction Anthology of the 1930s, page 34): "With the November 1930 issue, Wonder Stories went pulp size and left Amazing Stories as the only large-size science fiction magazine."

I consider Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville's Le Dernier Homme (1805) to be the first work of true rather than proto science fiction. It's a really great poem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Dernier_Homme. Following that you have the two wonderful Mary Shelley science fiction novels (1818 and 1826), and so on.

Periods more recent than 1976 break down better by genre, as I stated earlier. For proof I offer the fact that no further names for more recent periods have become widely accepted.

Here, again, are the periods as I will refer to them in this blog in chronological order:

1805-1919:     Early Science Fiction

1920-1930:     1920s Early Pulp

1931-1937:     1930s True Pulp

1938-1946:     Early (or First) Golden Age

1947-1959:     Later (or Second) Golden Age

1960-1976      New Wave Science Fiction

I freely admit these are very American-centric designations. I wonder if even Canadians would agree to them. The rest of the world certainly wouldn't. But I think it serves some use for discussions of USA-written science fiction.