City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library

Francis Cheynell (1608–1665) was a prominent English religious controversialist, of Presbyterian views, and President of St John's College, Oxford 1648 to 1650, imposed by the Parliamentary regime.

His Aulicus of 1644 is accounted the first work of speculative fiction to be set in a hypothetical future, in this case the return of Charles I of England.