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Theodore Savage

Part of MIT Press / Radium Age

Author Cicely Hamilton
Introduction by Susan R. Grayzel
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Paperback
$19.95 US
The MIT Press
5.25"W x 7.88"H x 0.67"D   | 10 oz | 48 per carton
On sale Feb 07, 2023 | 276 Pages | 9780262545228
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From one of the earliest feminist science fiction writers, a novel that envisions the fall of civilization—and the plight of the modern woman in a post-apocalyptic wilderness.

When war breaks out in Europe, British civilization collapses overnight. The ironically named protagonist must learn to survive by his wits in a new Britain. When we first meet Savage, he is a complacent civil servant, primarily concerned with romancing his girlfriend. During the brief war, in which both sides use population displacement as a terrible strategic weapon, Savage must battle his fellow countrymen. He shacks up with an ignorant young woman in a forest hut—a kind of inverse Garden of Eden, where no one is happy. Eventually, he sets off in search of other survivors . . . only to discover a primitive society where science and technology have come to be regarded with superstitious awe and terror. A pioneering feminist, Hamilton offers a warning about the degraded state of modern women, who—being “unhandy, unresourceful, superficial”—would suffer a particularly sad fate in a postapocalyptic social order.
Cicely Hamilton (1872–1952) was an Anglo-Irish actress, author, and feminist campaigner best known for her 1909 treatise Marriage as a Trade. Her prewar plays include Diana of Dobson’s (1908) and How the Vote Was Won (1909). After working in the north of France during World War I and witnessing how its violence affected civilians, she was inspired to write Theodore Savage (1922), a proto-sf novel presciently foregrounding modern warfare’s destructive power.

Susan R. Grayzel is Professor of History at Utah State University, where she researches and teaches about modern European history, women’s and gender history, the history of the world wars, and war and culture. Her publications in these areas include Women’s Identities at War (1999) and At Home and Under Fire (2012). Her latest book is The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Cicely Hamilton View titles by Cicely Hamilton
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Series Foreword vii
Introduction: "The Wars of the Air and the Laboratory": Theodore Savage at 100 xiii
Susan R. Grayzel

I 1 
II 13
III 23
IV 37
V 43
VI 61
VII 77
VIII 89
IX 99
X 107
XI 117
XII 127
XIII 135
XIV 149
XV 157
XVI 165
XVII 175
XVIII 181
XIX 197
XX 203
XXI 213
XXII 225
XXIII 237
Included in Tor.com's "Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for January and February 2023"

"Written in the Interwar Period, Theodore Savage is a terrifying and prescient science fiction novel that’s unflinching in its portrayal of the fragile scaffolding that supports “civilized” society."
—ForeWord Reviews, STARRED

"Prescient both to Hamilton’s time and to the current moment of war, plague, and refugee crises, this novel deserves to be rediscovered. Readers will have much to chew on."
—Publishers Weekly

"Decades later, scores of novels about the aftermath of nuclear war would deploy a similar gambit; few are quite this effective."
—Los Angeles Review of Books

In Praise of the Radium Age Series:

“Joshua Glenn’s admirable Radium Age series [is] devoted to early- 20th-century science fiction and fantasy.”
—The Washington Post

“Long live the Radium Age.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“It’s an attractive crusade. […] Glenn’s project is well suited to providing an organizing principle for an SF reprint line, to the point where I’m a little surprised that I can’t think of other similarly high-profile examples of reprint-as-critical-advocacy. ”
—The Los Angeles Review of Books

“Neglected classics of early 20th-century sci-fi in spiffily designed paperback editions.”
—The Financial Times

“New editions of a host of under-discussed classics of the genre.”
—Tor.com

“Shows that ‘proto-sf’ was being published much more widely, alongside other kinds of fiction, in a world before it emerged as a genre and became ghettoised.”
—BSFA Review

“A huge effort to help define a new era of science fiction.”
—Transfer Orbit

“An excellent start at showcasing the strange wonders offered by the Radium Age.”
—Maximum Shelfs

About

From one of the earliest feminist science fiction writers, a novel that envisions the fall of civilization—and the plight of the modern woman in a post-apocalyptic wilderness.

When war breaks out in Europe, British civilization collapses overnight. The ironically named protagonist must learn to survive by his wits in a new Britain. When we first meet Savage, he is a complacent civil servant, primarily concerned with romancing his girlfriend. During the brief war, in which both sides use population displacement as a terrible strategic weapon, Savage must battle his fellow countrymen. He shacks up with an ignorant young woman in a forest hut—a kind of inverse Garden of Eden, where no one is happy. Eventually, he sets off in search of other survivors . . . only to discover a primitive society where science and technology have come to be regarded with superstitious awe and terror. A pioneering feminist, Hamilton offers a warning about the degraded state of modern women, who—being “unhandy, unresourceful, superficial”—would suffer a particularly sad fate in a postapocalyptic social order.

Creators

Cicely Hamilton (1872–1952) was an Anglo-Irish actress, author, and feminist campaigner best known for her 1909 treatise Marriage as a Trade. Her prewar plays include Diana of Dobson’s (1908) and How the Vote Was Won (1909). After working in the north of France during World War I and witnessing how its violence affected civilians, she was inspired to write Theodore Savage (1922), a proto-sf novel presciently foregrounding modern warfare’s destructive power.

Susan R. Grayzel is Professor of History at Utah State University, where she researches and teaches about modern European history, women’s and gender history, the history of the world wars, and war and culture. Her publications in these areas include Women’s Identities at War (1999) and At Home and Under Fire (2012). Her latest book is The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Cicely Hamilton View titles by Cicely Hamilton

Table of Contents

Series Foreword vii
Introduction: "The Wars of the Air and the Laboratory": Theodore Savage at 100 xiii
Susan R. Grayzel

I 1 
II 13
III 23
IV 37
V 43
VI 61
VII 77
VIII 89
IX 99
X 107
XI 117
XII 127
XIII 135
XIV 149
XV 157
XVI 165
XVII 175
XVIII 181
XIX 197
XX 203
XXI 213
XXII 225
XXIII 237

Praise

Included in Tor.com's "Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for January and February 2023"

"Written in the Interwar Period, Theodore Savage is a terrifying and prescient science fiction novel that’s unflinching in its portrayal of the fragile scaffolding that supports “civilized” society."
—ForeWord Reviews, STARRED

"Prescient both to Hamilton’s time and to the current moment of war, plague, and refugee crises, this novel deserves to be rediscovered. Readers will have much to chew on."
—Publishers Weekly

"Decades later, scores of novels about the aftermath of nuclear war would deploy a similar gambit; few are quite this effective."
—Los Angeles Review of Books

In Praise of the Radium Age Series:

“Joshua Glenn’s admirable Radium Age series [is] devoted to early- 20th-century science fiction and fantasy.”
—The Washington Post

“Long live the Radium Age.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“It’s an attractive crusade. […] Glenn’s project is well suited to providing an organizing principle for an SF reprint line, to the point where I’m a little surprised that I can’t think of other similarly high-profile examples of reprint-as-critical-advocacy. ”
—The Los Angeles Review of Books

“Neglected classics of early 20th-century sci-fi in spiffily designed paperback editions.”
—The Financial Times

“New editions of a host of under-discussed classics of the genre.”
—Tor.com

“Shows that ‘proto-sf’ was being published much more widely, alongside other kinds of fiction, in a world before it emerged as a genre and became ghettoised.”
—BSFA Review

“A huge effort to help define a new era of science fiction.”
—Transfer Orbit

“An excellent start at showcasing the strange wonders offered by the Radium Age.”
—Maximum Shelfs

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