Stephen Marlowe 23 min read

All Matilda Penshaws wanted was a mate, and at thirty-three she had the gumption to go and hunt one down, but her search meant poaching in strictly forbidden territory.

Stephen Marlowe's 1951 story spins a wry first-contact and social-SF tale from a lonely woman's determined quest for a husband. Clever, ironic golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a spinster's romantic longing leads her somewhere far stranger than any dating pool.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

23 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Don Sibley