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Three hundred years hence
Reprint of the 1950 ed. published by Prime Press, Philadelphia, as no. 2 of the Prime Press series of reprints of early American Utopian novels. "Forms the first part of a volume entitled Camperdown; or, News from our neighbourhood: being sketched, by the author of 'Our neighbourhood,' published in Philadelphia, 1836." This edition is in the Gregg Press Science Fiction Series. Includes bibliographical references.
An excerpt from the beginning of CHAPTER I:
IT is seldom that men begin to muse and sit alone in the twilight until they arrive at the age of fifty, for until that period the cares of the world and the education of their young children engross all their thoughts. Edgar Hastings, our hero, at thirty years of age was still unmarried, but he had gone through a vast deal of excitement, and the age of musing had been anticipated by twenty years. He was left an orphan at fourteen, with a large income, and the gentleman who had the management of his estates proved faithful, so that when a person of talents and character was wanted to travel with the young man, a liberal recompense was at hand to secure his services. From the age of fourteen to twenty-one he was therefore travelling over Europe; but his education, instead of receiving a check, went on much more advantageously than if he had remained at home, and he became master of all the modern languages in the very countries where they were spoken. The last twelve months of his seven years' tour was spent in England, being stationary in London only during the sitting of Parliament.
An excerpt from the beginning of CHAPTER I:
IT is seldom that men begin to muse and sit alone in the twilight until they arrive at the age of fifty, for until that period the cares of the world and the education of their young children engross all their thoughts. Edgar Hastings, our hero, at thirty years of age was still unmarried, but he had gone through a vast deal of excitement, and the age of musing had been anticipated by twenty years. He was left an orphan at fourteen, with a large income, and the gentleman who had the management of his estates proved faithful, so that when a person of talents and character was wanted to travel with the young man, a liberal recompense was at hand to secure his services. From the age of fourteen to twenty-one he was therefore travelling over Europe; but his education, instead of receiving a check, went on much more advantageously than if he had remained at home, and he became master of all the modern languages in the very countries where they were spoken. The last twelve months of his seven years' tour was spent in England, being stationary in London only during the sitting of Parliament.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
131 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1836
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Mary Griffith
9 booksMary Griffith ( -1846)
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 22, 2022
A man falls asleep and wakes up in the year 2135 in a society where women has been educated, steam and coal are longer in use for energy and society is well-regulated. What interested me most in this story was the issues that was addressed in the utopian society - women's education, early childhood education, clean and well-managed markets and a universal income tax. These were some of the small and larger issues that were part of the 19th century society.
November 19, 2013
In Three Hundred Years Hence, Mary Griffith envisioned a feminist future in the year 2135. She set the book in Philadelphia, her hometown. In some ways her vision of the future is strange, at times not quite right, and in other ways amazing. Keep in mind, she wrote this in 1835.
In her novel, the main character, Edgar Hastings, when leaving on a business trip, as he walks to the steamboat, stops off at a small farmhouse on his estate. There he falls asleep. A great thaw causes a bank of snow from the hill above to cover the farmhouse. His family never tries to dig out his body as they think he's was on the steamship, which happened to explode . So they thought he died in the explosion with the other passengers.
Thee hundred years later, his descendants, who still own the property, hire workers to cut a road through the hill. They come to a stratum of ice. After the workers cut through the ice, they discover the farmhouse. Edgar's descendants step inside and that is when he thaws out and wakes up, still alive. But he thinks he's in the wrong place for so much has changed in 300 years. He finds the improvements taken place since his accident, amazing. Edgar’s descendants explain the improved conditions are due entirely to the changes that took place when all poor females were given an education.
In Philadelphia, Edgar only recognizes five buildings still standing from his day: the Mint, the United States Bank,, the Asylum for the deaf and dumb and Girard College, (still in operation and the school's buildings, shown in this drawing, still stand). Of all those, only one of them, the mint, was demolished, the other three still stand in 2013, almost two hundred years later.
In the book, Edgar's descendants inform him, no one goes door to door asking for donations to charities anymore. Now, each state runs its own charitable institutions, except for those people volunteer to maintain with their own money.
The old market place used to be a roof supported by pillars with stone pavement running the length of it, where women selling food and wares sat under the arch, outside of the pillars, and yelled through the streets, carrying fish and vegetables on their heads. Now it's changed into a two story, fire proof building of hewn stone. On the upper story, wooden, tin, baskets, and crockery domestic wares, as well as seeds and garden utensils, are all kept clean and are neatly arranged. On the ground floor, under which runs a stream of cold, clear water, are a variety of fruits vegetables. All the women clerks, selling the produce, wear caps and snow white aprons, and stand or sit by their baskets, no long yelling. In the butcher shop, meat is no longer hung in the open air. You just ask for a particular joint and a small door opens, two feet square in the wall and there hangs the part, priced four cents a pound.
Steamboats due to all their boiler explosions and the deaths they caused, were replaced in 1850. A woman invented a new power for the boats to run on – no steam, no heat, nor animal power, no masts and no sails, and not condensed air, which was tried in his time - but with enough energy to move the largest ship.
In China, the feet of their women are allowed to grow and they import their fashions from France. They also have made great improvements in the conditions of their lower class, all due to humanizing the treatment of women.
Tobacco is no longer grown, due to the disgusting habit of tobacco juice. Not due to the dangers of nicotine and cancer, which no one in the Regency era knew about. Instead of copy rights for 14 years, as in Edgar's time, they are held by the author, then his/her family as long as they choose to keep it. Daniel Webster became president in 1842, (of course that didn't happen).
By law, monopolies are no longer allowed. In 1848, the monopolies of roads are broken up and come under the state governments, then later, control of the roads all merge under the federal government.
In the rail cars they travel in, the seats are all nice rocking chairs. The cars run silently with little friction as the rails of the road and the tires of the wheels are of wood. They also come in a variety sizes – some small enough to only hold two or four passengers. They run by themselves and you just turn a little crank to bring the machine to a stop.
Edgar's descendants explain that as soon as women were considered of equal importance with their husbands – as soon as they were on equality in money matters all barbarians of the age disappeared. Women exterminated the war seed to abstain from shedding human blood except in self defense or in cases of invasion. No more hangings, criminals are sent to solitary confinement.
He also finds that slavery is abolished and the rights and privileges of African Americans are respected and all without a civil war. The government, rich in resources, and rich in land, sells the land, and with that money they indemnify the slaveholders for their loss of property. (Keep in mind she is writing this twenty-six years before the civil war began).
Mary Griffith's The Hundred Years Hence is just one example of Sci-fi written in the Regency and Victorian period by women authors. Women have been reading and writing Sci-fi for a long time and will continue doing both long into the future.
In her novel, the main character, Edgar Hastings, when leaving on a business trip, as he walks to the steamboat, stops off at a small farmhouse on his estate. There he falls asleep. A great thaw causes a bank of snow from the hill above to cover the farmhouse. His family never tries to dig out his body as they think he's was on the steamship, which happened to explode . So they thought he died in the explosion with the other passengers.
Thee hundred years later, his descendants, who still own the property, hire workers to cut a road through the hill. They come to a stratum of ice. After the workers cut through the ice, they discover the farmhouse. Edgar's descendants step inside and that is when he thaws out and wakes up, still alive. But he thinks he's in the wrong place for so much has changed in 300 years. He finds the improvements taken place since his accident, amazing. Edgar’s descendants explain the improved conditions are due entirely to the changes that took place when all poor females were given an education.
In Philadelphia, Edgar only recognizes five buildings still standing from his day: the Mint, the United States Bank,, the Asylum for the deaf and dumb and Girard College, (still in operation and the school's buildings, shown in this drawing, still stand). Of all those, only one of them, the mint, was demolished, the other three still stand in 2013, almost two hundred years later.
In the book, Edgar's descendants inform him, no one goes door to door asking for donations to charities anymore. Now, each state runs its own charitable institutions, except for those people volunteer to maintain with their own money.
The old market place used to be a roof supported by pillars with stone pavement running the length of it, where women selling food and wares sat under the arch, outside of the pillars, and yelled through the streets, carrying fish and vegetables on their heads. Now it's changed into a two story, fire proof building of hewn stone. On the upper story, wooden, tin, baskets, and crockery domestic wares, as well as seeds and garden utensils, are all kept clean and are neatly arranged. On the ground floor, under which runs a stream of cold, clear water, are a variety of fruits vegetables. All the women clerks, selling the produce, wear caps and snow white aprons, and stand or sit by their baskets, no long yelling. In the butcher shop, meat is no longer hung in the open air. You just ask for a particular joint and a small door opens, two feet square in the wall and there hangs the part, priced four cents a pound.
Steamboats due to all their boiler explosions and the deaths they caused, were replaced in 1850. A woman invented a new power for the boats to run on – no steam, no heat, nor animal power, no masts and no sails, and not condensed air, which was tried in his time - but with enough energy to move the largest ship.
In China, the feet of their women are allowed to grow and they import their fashions from France. They also have made great improvements in the conditions of their lower class, all due to humanizing the treatment of women.
Tobacco is no longer grown, due to the disgusting habit of tobacco juice. Not due to the dangers of nicotine and cancer, which no one in the Regency era knew about. Instead of copy rights for 14 years, as in Edgar's time, they are held by the author, then his/her family as long as they choose to keep it. Daniel Webster became president in 1842, (of course that didn't happen).
By law, monopolies are no longer allowed. In 1848, the monopolies of roads are broken up and come under the state governments, then later, control of the roads all merge under the federal government.
In the rail cars they travel in, the seats are all nice rocking chairs. The cars run silently with little friction as the rails of the road and the tires of the wheels are of wood. They also come in a variety sizes – some small enough to only hold two or four passengers. They run by themselves and you just turn a little crank to bring the machine to a stop.
Edgar's descendants explain that as soon as women were considered of equal importance with their husbands – as soon as they were on equality in money matters all barbarians of the age disappeared. Women exterminated the war seed to abstain from shedding human blood except in self defense or in cases of invasion. No more hangings, criminals are sent to solitary confinement.
He also finds that slavery is abolished and the rights and privileges of African Americans are respected and all without a civil war. The government, rich in resources, and rich in land, sells the land, and with that money they indemnify the slaveholders for their loss of property. (Keep in mind she is writing this twenty-six years before the civil war began).
Mary Griffith's The Hundred Years Hence is just one example of Sci-fi written in the Regency and Victorian period by women authors. Women have been reading and writing Sci-fi for a long time and will continue doing both long into the future.
Read
December 6, 2020É o maior problema das primeiras ficções científicas utópicas, são uns exposição de um mundo novo sem grandes momentos de conflito que tornam um livro envolvente.
Além disso o livro tem algumas consideráveis questões com racismo e preconceito, independente de ter sido escrito em outro tempo.
Além disso o livro tem algumas consideráveis questões com racismo e preconceito, independente de ter sido escrito em outro tempo.
January 22, 2022
Three Hundred Years Hence is a fascinating utopian novel, the first by a woman in the US, published in 1836. In many ways it anticipates the much more famous Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy--a similar plot structure, for example. However Griffith's focus is on women's rights. Looking forward 300 years, she imagines a society in which women have been liberated and as a result all of society has emerged from darkness. Women have reinterpreted society, invented new technologies, and generated new levels of freedom for everyone. There is a single tax, railroads are run by the government. Enslaved people have been emancipated, however they have all been removed to Liberia. And Griffith wholly ducks the question of Indians--although in other writings she expressed a sense of the injustice of their treatment, she seemed not to want to offend readers by raising the issue here. (For more on this and other issues, see Duangrudi Suksang's essay: https://web.archive.org/web/200802192...)
Oddly although the book stands out for its views on women, there are no women in the plot. This and the generally polemical nature of the book (as in many 19th c. utopian novels) makes it a rather dry read. But the notion of a woman writer imagining such changes in our world many years later nonetheless makes it a worthwhile read.
Oddly although the book stands out for its views on women, there are no women in the plot. This and the generally polemical nature of the book (as in many 19th c. utopian novels) makes it a rather dry read. But the notion of a woman writer imagining such changes in our world many years later nonetheless makes it a worthwhile read.
August 1, 2017
Simple. And thought-provoking. Written in ye ol english. a quick read. Kindled it. Interesting to see what ideas and thoughts were 'futuristic' pre-1900. Issues dealing with women's rights and place in society, slavery, transportation (though never fully explained). A quick jaunt into the future as seen from this author. Glad I read it. Doubt I will read it again. Odd coincidence for much of it to take place across the river in Philadelphia (not too far from where I read it).
January 20, 2021
maybe a generous 3.5 roundup, rip van winkle/"it was all just a dream" utopia that spends as much time talking about future tech, architecture, nyc, philadelphia and nj as it does the social elements of the society, in which women gain equal rights - though strangely enough doesn't seem to mention suffrage. funny in some places, and not long enough for it to drag on with its relatively basic plot
June 4, 2020
So, so boring. The description sounded like a fun sci-fi piece. It was all dialogue, boring, and takes a weird racist turn.
October 11, 2020
Griffith "imagined a future in which society's advancements increase dramatically due to one major structural shift: supporting women in science." - foreword. Hopefully it doesn't take until 2135!
August 1, 2014
A man falls asleep and dreams about the region around Philadelphia three hundred years in the future (from around 1836). There is no real character development in this story, nor is there any actual story, other than what I stated in the first sentence. This is basically a wish-list of changes the author would like to see in the near future. I have no idea why she made it 300 years in the future and not 40 or 50. The changes she writes of could easily have happened in that time. There is no particular direction to this stuff, other than a fair amount of space used up talking about how the education of women (and giving them the right to inherit all of their husband's estate) changed society for the better, eliminating war, the beating of children, dueling, smoking, hard liqueur, etc. The rest is just rambling. Here is a fairly complete list of her predictions (hopes?).
Cars with internal engines, not steam, nor gas, run on rails and carry two or three people at a time.
Farmland flat and more efficient
Dogs killed to prevent rabies
Girard College in Philadelphia flourishing, since clergy no longer run it
Philadelphia center for the arts the best art gallery in the country
Painting out of favor, sculpture much improved
Charitable institutions all run by government
"We owe the improved
condition of our people entirely to the improvement in the
education of the female poor; blessed be the name of that man." (A rich man freed women from the need to beg for charity door-to-door)
Women quieter, especially at the market ( less pushy). Market cleaner and neater. Dress extremely conservative, covering the neck.
Steamboats outlawed after 50 years of use. Ships can travel from India in 20 days. People frequently travel by ship. Trade opened with China after 200 years. China still has an emperor. China gets its fashions (and porcelain) from France.
They ship ice. "Now, every landlord builds a stack of ice in the
yard, and thatches it well with oat straw;"
Copyrights expanded from 14 years to forever.
National roads, with state roads going between towns.
Canals closed in the states.
Clergy are well supported by the community and never leave. Everyone super religious (protestant christian, of course).
No credit. Direct taxes instituted, so everyone pays taxes.
No duties or tarrifs.
War settled by single combat (for the past 120 years). No death penalty. Murderers get life with no parole in solitary confinement. There is very little murder, since women have more power, so everyone is more religious. (We all know religious fanatics don't kill people, right?)
Houses are all insured (for a trifling) and wood is coated with a fire-proof material.
Water supplied by 1000 foot wells.
Actors are people of education, all playing their parts perfectly.
Corporal punishment out of favor. Liquor banished for 200 years. No tobacco.
No male tailors—men measure, but women cut and sew.
The slaves were freed and sent to Liberia, so nearly all people in the U.S are white. The few black people who remained decided not to interbreed with the white people.
Indians (native Americans) were apparently slaughtered and are no more.
Not particularly visionary or interesting, is it?
Cars with internal engines, not steam, nor gas, run on rails and carry two or three people at a time.
Farmland flat and more efficient
Dogs killed to prevent rabies
Girard College in Philadelphia flourishing, since clergy no longer run it
Philadelphia center for the arts the best art gallery in the country
Painting out of favor, sculpture much improved
Charitable institutions all run by government
"We owe the improved
condition of our people entirely to the improvement in the
education of the female poor; blessed be the name of that man." (A rich man freed women from the need to beg for charity door-to-door)
Women quieter, especially at the market ( less pushy). Market cleaner and neater. Dress extremely conservative, covering the neck.
Steamboats outlawed after 50 years of use. Ships can travel from India in 20 days. People frequently travel by ship. Trade opened with China after 200 years. China still has an emperor. China gets its fashions (and porcelain) from France.
They ship ice. "Now, every landlord builds a stack of ice in the
yard, and thatches it well with oat straw;"
Copyrights expanded from 14 years to forever.
National roads, with state roads going between towns.
Canals closed in the states.
Clergy are well supported by the community and never leave. Everyone super religious (protestant christian, of course).
No credit. Direct taxes instituted, so everyone pays taxes.
No duties or tarrifs.
War settled by single combat (for the past 120 years). No death penalty. Murderers get life with no parole in solitary confinement. There is very little murder, since women have more power, so everyone is more religious. (We all know religious fanatics don't kill people, right?)
Houses are all insured (for a trifling) and wood is coated with a fire-proof material.
Water supplied by 1000 foot wells.
Actors are people of education, all playing their parts perfectly.
Corporal punishment out of favor. Liquor banished for 200 years. No tobacco.
No male tailors—men measure, but women cut and sew.
The slaves were freed and sent to Liberia, so nearly all people in the U.S are white. The few black people who remained decided not to interbreed with the white people.
Indians (native Americans) were apparently slaughtered and are no more.
Not particularly visionary or interesting, is it?
Read
April 17, 20221836
the main character, Edgar Hastings, falls asleep in 1835 to awaken in 2135 to a very different world in which gender equality is the norm.
the main character, Edgar Hastings, falls asleep in 1835 to awaken in 2135 to a very different world in which gender equality is the norm.
Read
November 17, 2017Despite being incredibly well written, imaginative, pro(to)-feminist, and uncannily prescient at time, this delightful utopian story botches it in the 11th hour: "What became of the slaves?" Why, the government used proceeds from land sales to buy all their freedom, and they happily went back to Africa. "What happened to the Native folks?" Well, we don't like to talk about it, but they all died out.
More bourgeois fantasy.
More bourgeois fantasy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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