In this blog post, I’m going to be explaining an inquiry question about steampunk. My question is ‘what started the steampunk craze?’. It was invented by K. W. Jeter, who first coined the term ‘steampunk’ in 1987. Since then, it has grown in fascination. But what was the first steampunk element? To find this, I must delve deep into the past…

There are several different genres within steampunk. There’s music, books, clothing, machines, and an assortment of others. But what was the original?

Theoretically, as I mentioned before, steampunk the word was first created in 1987. Before that though, the genre was there. It was mostly a book theme, and developed many facets later.

Steampunk was first inspired by the 19th century scientific works, and went from there. The first work that was considered genre proper was Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake, 1959, although some believe Michael Moorcock’s The Warlord of the Air, 1971, to be it. The Warlord of the Air was heavily influenced by Peake’s work, so comme-ci comme-ça.

Since then, steampunk has developed. There have been many festivals and events, including the Watch City Steampunk Festival, a day at the San Diego Comic-Con, and even at the Kaslo May Days!

So the answer to my original question would be books. A sub-genre leading to many great things. All the way to today, where we’re learning about it in class!

This was an interesting part of our learning. Steampunk is very interesting to me, and it was cool we got to learn about it in class. I can see how the steampunk genre relates to the industrial revolution, and is in a similar time period to most of the revolution. The steam powered machines were just being created, and it changed society. It also adds more to our metaphor machine, making them more aesthetically pleasing.