"Out of the Silence: A Romance"

1919 Cox, Erle [Harold] (1873-1950). Out of the Silence: A Romance. The Argus (Melbourne, Vic, Australia) Saturdays, except for Friday July 18 (April 19, 26, May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, June 7, 14, 21, 28, July 5, 12, 18, 26, August 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, September 6, 13, 20, 27, October 4, 11, 18, 25, 1919): 6; 8; 8; 8; 8; 8; 7; 8; 8; 10; 10; 10; 10; 6; 10; 8; 10; 8; 8; 8; 6; 11; 12; 10; 10; 8; 8; 8. Rpt. Melbourne, VIC: Edward A. Vidler, [1925]; Sydney, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1981; and Mt. Waverley, VIC, Australia: Aurealis Books/Chimaera Publications, 2010, with an “Introduction” by Van Ikin (ii-iv). U.K. edition London: John Hamilton, [1927]. U.S. edition New York: Rae D. Henkle, 1928. 4^th edition Melbourne, VIC: Robertson & Mullens, 1932. 1947 edition by the same publisher, labeled a reprint, is, in fact, substantially revised, cut by 15% and with an added Prologue (vii-xxii). This edition reprinted Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1976. The edition published [Appleton, WI]: Capricorn Publishing, 2006 restores cuts and includes the “Prologue” from the 1947 edition (228-236), which makes this the first complete edition. It also includes “A Note on the Text” ([iii] and “Book Wrangler’s Postscript” The Intellectual Sources of Erle Cox’s Out of the Silence” by John Costello (237-[248]) A daily comic strip version by Hix [Reginald E. Hicks] was published in The Argus (August 4 - December 21, 1934), generally on page 2. Radio serial version on 2CH Sydney March 11 - June 10, 1940, and 3BD Melbourne April 7 - September 2, 1943. ATL, DLC, M, MoU-St, PSt

Flawed utopia. A past society had a highly developed, but authoritarian civilization with exceptional art and science . Explicitly racist and with a focus on eugenics, although the author of the Postscript in the Capricorn edition argues that the book is a warning against such thinking rather than supporting it. The argument is, essentially, that Cox is presenting the Eugenic Utopia as it would develop, which later became the goal of Nazi Germany, but that Cox intended it to be read as a dystopia. No direct evidence is presented, but it is a plausible interpretation. Survivors who had been put in suspended animation are discovered, which is initially perceived positively, but they are found to have no concern at all for humans, who they consider to be the lower beings.