Theodore Savage

By Cicely Hamilton

Book Overview

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 Theodore Savage, he is a complacent civil servant, primarily concerned with romancing his girlfriend. During a 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262545225
• ISBN13: 9780262545228
• Release Date: February 2023
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.8"