The World as It Shall Be

by Émile Souvestre, Margaret Clarke (Translator), Ignatius Frederick Clarke (Introduction, Editor)

It's the year 3000, and children are raised by steam machines, Switzerland has been converted into a theme park, and there are no fewer than 684 kinds of mental illness. With eccentric, dark humor, Emile Souvestre portrays a society dominated by mechanization and greed. However comically exaggerated, the unmistakable echoes of real problems and possibilities in Souvestre's satire make this book science fiction's earliest warning against the dangers of mechanization in a society ruled by consumerism.

The World as It Shall Be was originally published in France in 1846--the first fully illustrated story in the history of future fiction. The satiric novel, with 87 charming illustrations, unfolds through the eyes of Maurice and Marthe, a young couple who are brought to the year 3000 by the spirit of the age, M. John Progres. This first English translation includes all of the original art.

Genres: France, Dystopia, Science Fiction

284 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1846

About the author

Émile Souvestre was a French novelist who was a native of Morlaix, Finistère. He was the son of a civil engineer and was educated at the college of Pontivy, with the intention of following his father's career by entering the Polytechnic School.

His best work is to be found in Les Derniers Bretons (4 vols, 1835-1837) and Le Foyer breton (1844), where the folk-lore and natural features of his native province are worked up into story form, and in Un Philosophe sous les toils, which received in 1851 a well-deserved academic prize. He also wrote a number of other works—novels, dramas, essays and miscellanies

Reviews

[Lulu]

1846

[molly🎀🤍✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO ahead of its time it’s scary. Very very clever and despite reading the English translation I love how it’s written

[Christophe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those who talk about Huxley's relevance should dive into this book. All of his supposed anticipations are already there, almost one century before Brave New World. And it is much more fun to read.