Percy Greg son of William Rathbone Greg

William Rathbone Greg

William Rathbone Greg was an English essayist.Born in Manchester, the son of Samuel Greg, the creator of Quarry Bank Mill, he was brother to Robert Hyde Greg and the junior Samuel Greg. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh. For a time, he managed a mill of his father's at Bury, and in...

, was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 writer.

Percy Greg, like his father, wrote about politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, but his views were violently reactionary: his History of the United States to the Reconstruction of the Union (1887) can be said to be more of a polemic

Polemic

A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...

, rather than a history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

.

His Across the Zodiac

Across The Zodiac

Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record is a science fiction novel by Percy Greg, who has been credited as an originator of the Sword and planet sub-genre of science fiction.- Plot :...

(1880) is an early science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel, said to be the progenitor of the sword-and-planet

Sword and planet

Sword and Planet is a subgenre of science fantasy that features rousing adventure stories set on other planets, and usually featuring Earthmen as protagonists. The name derives from the heroes of the genre engaging their adversaries in hand to hand combat primarily with simple melee weapons such as...

 genre. For that novel, Greg created what may have been the first artistic language

Artistic language

An artistic language is a constructed language designed for aesthetic pleasure. Unlike engineered languages or auxiliary languages, artistic languages usually have irregular grammar systems, much like natural languages. Many are designed within the context of fictional worlds, such as J. R. R....

 that was described with linguistic and grammatical terminology. It also contained what is possibly the first instance in the English language of the word "Astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

".

In 2010 a crater on Mars was named Greg in recognition of his contribution to the lore of Mars.