"A Week in the Future"

1888-89 Spence, C[atherine] H[elen] (1825-1910). “A Week in the Future.” The Centennial Magazine: An Australian Monthly 1 (December - July): 388-93; 468-79; 552-63; 657-65; 731-40; 828-32; 899-908 [A, ATL, PSt]. Rpt. ed. Lesley Durrell Ljungdahl. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Hale & Iremonger, 1987, which is heavily illustrated with material from the period  of the first publication; and Mt. Waverley, VIC, Australia: Aurealis Books/Chimaera Publications, 2010, with an “Introduction” by Lucy Sussex (ii-iv). The manuscript of the book is at the State Library of South Australia. A, ATL, PSt

Eutopia set in London in 1988. Everyone lives in “Associated homes” and works a six-hour day mostly in cooperatives. Population limited, primarily through birth control. No pollution. Strict control on both immigration and emigration. Eugenics with feeble-minded children killed at birth and “criminal lunatics” euthanized (36-37, 115). Women work equally with men in all occupations. Ireland now part of the United Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland, but all four component units have some independent political institutions. Based in part on the writings of Jane Hume Clapperton, particularly her Scientific Meliorism and the Evolution of Happiness. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885. See also 1888 Clapperton. See also 1879 and 1884 Spence. The female author was born in Scotland and moved to Australia in 1839.