A Crystal Age
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1906 Edition
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| Author | W. H. Hudson |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre |
Utopian fiction Science fiction Belles-lettres |
| Publisher | T. Fisher Unwin |
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Publication date
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1887 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 287 pp. |
A Crystal Age is a utopian novel/ Dystopia written by W. H. Hudson, first published in 1887. The book has been called a "significant S-F milestone" and has been noted for its anticipation of the "modern ecological mysticism" that would evolve a century later.
The book was first issued anonymously in 1887. The second edition of 1906 identified the author by name, and included a preface by Hudson. The third edition of 1916 added a foreword by Clifford Smith.
Hudson's second novel was one element in the major wave of utopian and dystopian literature that characterized the final decades of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, in Great Britain and the United States.
Whether they wrote fiction or non-fiction, most utopian writers of Hudson's generation placed a strong emphasis on technological progress as a way to a better future; examples range from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) to King Gillette's The Human Drift (1894) to Alexander Craig's Ionia (1898) to H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia (1905). Conversely, though, a minority of utopian writers reacted with a skepticism toward, or even a rejection of, technological progress, and favored a return to an agrarian simplicity; these "pastoral utopias" included William Morris's News from Nowhere (1891) and the "Altrurian trilogy" of William Dean Howells, his A Traveler from Altruria (1894) and its sequels.
Hudson's A Crystal Age belongs securely in the latter category of pastoral utopia. The people of his imagined future possess only one piece of technology, a system of "brass globes" that produces a form of ambient music. Otherwise they have no machines and only simple devices; they plow their fields with horses and use axes to chop down trees.
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