The Darkest Hours - 18 Chilling Dystopias in One Edition. Samuel Butler

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The Darkest Hours - 18 Chilling Dystopias in One Edition - Samuel Butler


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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_2b546607-26ff-5b04-9fbc-01b8372c11b6">115 Chicago was the industrial inferno of the nineteenth century A.D. A curious anecdote has come down to us of John Burns, a great English labor leader and one time member of the British Cabinet. In Chicago, while on a visit to the United States, he was asked by a newspaper reporter for his opinion of that city. “Chicago,” he answered, “is a pocket edition of hell.” Some time later, as he was going aboard his steamer to sail to England, he was approached by another reporter, who wanted to know if he had changed his opinion of Chicago. “Yes, I have,” was his reply. “My present opinion is that hell is a pocket edition of Chicago.”

      Meccania the Super-State

      (Owen Gregory)

       Table of Contents

       Introduction

       Note on Personal Names

       I. I Become a Foreign Observer

       II. Bridgetown, Tour No. 1

       III. Introduction to Mecco

       IV. Professor Proser-Toady’s Lecture

       V. Culture in Mecco

       VI. More Culture in Mecco

       VII. A Meccanian Apostle

       VIII. The Mechow Festival

       IX. Meccanisation

       X. Conversations

       XI. An Academic Discussion

       XII. The Latest Institution

       XIII. Never Again

      Inscribed to W. H. S.

       in token of twenty-eight years’ friendship

      Introduction.

       A Few Words About Mr. Ming and His Journal

       Table of Contents

      As this book is little more than a transcript of a document originally written in the form of a journal by a man who, until about a year ago, was an entire stranger to me, and as the document itself contains not a few statements which make large demands upon the credulity of the average reader, it seems necessary to offer some explanation regarding both the journal and its author, Mr. Ming—or, to give him his full name, Ming Yuen-hwuy.

      If I were able to go bail for Mr. Ming and assure the British Public that he was an entirely credible and impartial witness, the book might have stood on the same foundation as other volumes of ‘revelations’ concerning a country with which Englishmen are still insufficiently acquainted. But I cannot go bail for Mr. Ming. The chief source of my knowledge of him is the journal itself. It has even been suggested to me that Mr. Ming did not write the journal, but must have stolen it from some European, probably an Englishman. On this point I shall have something to say presently. Perhaps the best solution of these difficulties will be to say what I know of the origin of the book.

      Mr. Ming was introduced to


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