Gustavus Pope was an American physician and author of many books in the nineteenth century, including two interplanetary tales that adopt the conventional evolutionist line of that time. In A Journey to Mars,¹ an American officer falls in love with an advanced Martian on a world strongly reminiscent of that portrayed two decades later by Edgar Rice Burroughs, while in A Journey to Venus (1895) his explorers find themselves on a primeval planet inhabited by all manner of creatures taken from prehistory and myth.

 

Reference

1. Pope, Gustavus W. Romances of the Planets, No. 1: Journey to Mars, the Wonderful World: Its Beauty and Splendor: Its Mighty Races and Kingdoms: Its Final Doom. Westport, Conn.: Hyperion (1974) (first published 1894).