Cora Semmes Ives

Cora Matilda Semmes Ives (née Semmes; June 26, 1834 – January 27, 1916) was an American writer. She is known for her pro-Confederate utopian novel The Princess of the Moon: A Confederate Fairy Story, published in 1869.

Life and work Cora Semmes was the daughter of Raphael Semmes (1786–1846) and Mary Matilda née Jenkins Semmes (1800–1881). She was the sister of Confederate Senator Thomas Jenkins Semmes. On June 15, 1855, she married Joseph Christmas Ives, an explorer of the Western United States who later served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army. They had three children, Edward Bernard Ives (1855–1903), Francis Joseph Ives (1857–1908), and Eugene Semmes Ives (1859–1917). However, Joseph Ives' alcoholism eventually tarnished the reputation of the prominent couple and prompted gossip. Following the Civil War, the couple moved to New York City, and his alcoholism perhaps contributed to Joseph Ives' death in 1868.

The Princess of the Moon

In 1869, Ives published The Princess of the Moon: A Confederate Fairy Story under the pen name "A Lady of Warrenton, Va". The novel tells the story of Randolph, a former Confederate soldier who is visited by the Fairy of the Moon. The Fairy provides Randolph a winged horse named Hope which transports him to the moon, a beautiful utopian society. Randolph undergoes a series of challenges to win the hand of the Princess of the Moon, but their wedding is interrupted by the appearance of Yankee carpetbaggers, invading the moon in hot air balloons, accompanied by Randolph's former slave. In The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, John Clute notes the "equipoisal" nature of the novel freely mixing fantasy and science fiction elements and describes the moon utopia as "a purified vision of the antebellum South."