THE AGE OF SCIENCE.
A NEWSPAPER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
Author: MERLIN NOSTRADAMUS
Copyright Status: Public Domain
Category: Fiction, Science Fiction
Pseudonym of Irish author Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904) for The Age of Science: A Newspaper of the Twentieth Century (1877), a Satire purporting to replicate the New Year's Day issue of a 1977 newspaper, which reveals the world of a century hence to have become a Dystopia. Medicine, though much-advanced technology, has become a tool for the oppression of women (see Feminism); they are forbidden to read or write, and maybe institutionalized for mental disorders on the say-so of any medical doctor.
Cobbe's use of the Merlin Nostradamus pseudonym is confirmed in the biography Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer (2004) by Sally Mitchell. The general thrust of The Age of Science is echoed in some nonfiction published under her own name, in particular The Scientific Spirit of the Age and Other Pleas and Discussions (1888).
Table of Contents
THE AGE OF SCIENCE. A NEWSPAPER OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
THE AGE OF SCIENCE
THE AGE OF SCIENCE
The greatest discovery ever achieved by man is beyond all question that which it is now our privilege to announce, namely, that of the new PROSPECTIVE TELEGRAPH. By this truly wonderful invention (exquisitely simple in its machinery, yet of surpassing power) the obstacle of Time is as effectually conquered as that of Space has been for the last generation by the Electric Telegraph; and future yearseven, it is anticipated, future centurieswill be made to respond to our call as promptly and completely as do now the uttermost parts of the earth wherewith the magic wire has placed us in communication.
For obvious reasons the particulars of this most marvelous invention and the name of its author must be withheld from the public till the patents are made out, and the enormous profits which must accrue from its application be secured to the Company which is invited to undertake to work it (with limited liability). We are only permitted by special favor to hint that the natural Force relied on to set the machinery in action is neither Electric, Magnetic, nor Galvanic; nor yet any combination of these; but that other great correlated imponderable agency, whose existence has been for some time suspected by many intelligent inquirers, called the Psychic Force, whose laws of action it has been reserved for this new and greater WHEATSTONE to develop and apply to practical utility. That no skepticism may linger in the minds of our readers, we desire to add that we have been gratified by the actual inspection of several short fragments forestalled by this invaluable process from the press of the next fifty, eighty, and one hundred and thirty years respectively; and have at this moment in our hands a complete transcript (the most important document of the series) of a newspaper bearing date January 1st, 1977, photographed in a very beautiful manner by the machine upon an enormous sheet of paper, which was found needful to contain the type in the most compressed form. As the printed matter of this gigantic periodical equals at least in bulk the whole of Gibbon's History or Mr. Jowett's edition of Plato, we cannot attempt to do more than offer our readers a few brief extracts, serving, however, we trust, as not inadequate samples of the literary treasures which are short to be revealed to our curiosity, and satisfying even the most incredulous that the invention of which we speak has been crowned with triumphant success. We have only to add that the great originator of this discovery entertains hopes that, by an ingenious inversion of the action of his machine, he may be able to convert it, when required, into a RETROSPECTIVE TELEGRAPH, bringing back the Past, as it already antedates the Future, and restoring to