After London

It’s a slightly tired copy but so much nicer than the horrible print on demand copy I had which will go to a charity shop as soon as they open.

I can’t lie - it’s pretty hard going. And not a lot actually happens in a significant tangible sense. It certainly picked up before the end but then failed to properly conclude the story in my opinion. It is however a very vividly created world and written with charm and some skill. It’s the characterisation and overall plot execution that sadly lets it down.

This looks like it was printed in someone's garage. The cover is actually as depicted. It feels like I bought someone's self-publication rather than a book from the late 1800s, but there is no publication details to confirm that.

I read it for the first time- i thought it was so good, i read the entire thing again- and started for a third time I have never been so enthralled in such a great book! For sure my new favorite book!

This 1885 effort is said to be among the earliest, "after the collapse" stories. Somehow - we never learn how - the society of the writer's day has vanished. The author starts the book with a detailed recitation of nature reclaiming its own, inch by inch, tree by tree, village by village. Sparely told, it captures a naturalist's sense of how nature actually works. Then the Victorian part kicks in. That's the part when the author describes the society centuries after the fall. There's brief mention of the tribal conflict between descendants of the English, Irish, and Welsh. But, closer to the protagonist's home, there are the wandering gypsies and degraded people of the forest. It seems almost an obligation to describe the hierarchy of human types - Our Hero being the apex, of course. After the introduction, Our Hero meets his true lover (Aurora), declares himself unworthy of her love (without asking her opinion, of course), and sets out to make his fortune. After mishaps with the warring baronies and with a toxic swamp still virulent long after its makers had died (a modern touch), he settles among peaceful herdsmen. There, his natural English superiority to the bumpkins manifests itself, and they declare him their king. The book ends with him off to bring his beloved to the country he has just established. Despite modern touches, like a tour of the toxic swamp that brings Roadside Picnic to mind, this remains firmly rooted in its time. It's easy to feel some superiority to the rigid classism and sexism that it takes for granted - leaving me to wonder what future readers will feel superior to when reading today's literature. Although interesting as a time capsule and as progenitor of today's vast post-apocalyptic genre, I can't really recommend the story itself as one to come back to. -- wiredweird