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The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Part of MIT Press / Radium Age

Author G.K. Chesterton

Introduction by Madeline Ashby

Paperback

$19.95 US

The MIT Press

5.31"W x 7.88"H x 0.65"D | 8 oz | 39 per carton

On sale Aug 01, 2023 | 248 Pages | 9780262546416

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A satire set in a future England, in which a neomedievalist contest among London neighborhoods takes a disastrous turn.

When Auberon Quin, a prankster nostalgic for Merrie Olde England, becomes king of that country in 1984, he mandates that each of London’s neighborhoods become an independent state, complete with unique local costumes. Everyone goes along with the conceit until young Adam Wayne, a born military tactician, takes the game too seriously . . . and becomes the Napoleon of Notting Hill. War ensues throughout the city—fought with sword and halberd!

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author, poet, critic, and newspaper columnist known for his brilliant, epigrammatic paradoxes. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, featured in over fifty stories published between 1910 and 1936, who solves mysteries and crimes thanks to his understanding of spiritual and philosophic truths; and his best-known novel is The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), a metaphysical thriller. In addition to The Napoleon of Notting Hill, his first novel, he wrote several other near-future satires of England.

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author, poet, critic, and newspaper columnist known for his brilliant, epigrammatic paradoxes. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, featured in over fifty stories published between 1910 and 1936, who solves mysteries and crimes thanks to his understanding of spiritual and philosophic truths; and his best-known novel is The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), a metaphysical thriller. In addition to The Napoleon of Notting Hill, his first novel, he wrote several other near-future satires of England.

Madeline Ashby is the author of the Machine Dynasty series and the novel Company Town, as well as a contributor to How to Future: Leading and Sense-Making in an Age of Hyperchange. She has developed science fiction prototypes for Changeist, the Institute for the Future, the Smithsonian Institution, SciFutures, Nesta, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Atlantic Council, and others.

G.K. Chesterton View titles by G.K. Chesterton

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Series Foreword ix
Introduction: Dystopias Are Problems Plus Time xv
Madeline Ashby

Book I
I Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy 3
II The Man in Green 9
III The Hill of Humor 31

Book II
I The Charter of the Cities 43
II The Council of the Provosts 55
III Enter a Lunatic 69

Book III
I The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne 87
II The Remarkable Mr. Turnbull 103
III The Experiment of Mr. Buck 115

Book IV
I The Battle of the Lamps 135
II The Correspondent of the "Court Journal" 151
III The Great Army of South Kensington 163

Book V
I The Empire of Notting Hill 189
II The Last Battle 205
III Two Voices 215

"Unquestionably a satirical masterpiece."
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“A strange social satire. . . . [and] a fascinating study of arrogance and folly, of progress and tradition and, oddly, of human nature itself.”
—Fortean Times

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