The Great Romance
as by The Inhabitant
The book‘s opening scene portrays the protagonist, John Hope, awakening from a sleep of
193 years. Hope had been a prominent mid-twentieth-century scientist, who had developed
new power sources that enabled air travel and, eventually, space exploration. In the year
1950, Hope had taken a “sleeping draught” that put him into a long suspended
animation, as part of a planned experiment. When he wakes in the year 2143, he is met by
Alfred and Edith Weir, descendants of John Malcolm Weir, the chemist who had prepared the
sleeping draft Hope had taken in 1950.
The original edition of The Great Romance is one
of the rarest books extant, with single copies of Parts 1 and 2 existing in New Zealand
libraries. After a century of neglect, the book has been reprinted by editor Dominic
Alessio, first in Science Fiction Studies in 1993 (Part 1) and then in a separate volume
in 2008 (Parts 1 and 2).[9] (A third part of the story is thought to have existed, but no
copy has yet been found.) The two extant volumes were reprinted in 2008,
along with commentary by Dominic Alessio on the influence the writing likely had on Edward Bellamy’s Looking
Backward.
Considerable detective work has been applied to the question of the
identity of the pseudonymous Inhabitant, although with no definite result.
Nevertheless, we lean toward the theory of one “Honnor
of Ashburton,” because of an annotation to this effect in the only known original
copies of the first two volumes of the work. Additionally, of the two title leafs
found with Volume 1, the Ashburton page was printed on paper that matches that of the
volume itself, and the volume contained advertisements for Ashburton businesses. This
explains the photo we’ve attached to the story, which depicts the Ashburton Borough
Council and Public Library, circa 1881. So far as we know, the clock tower has no
connection to the lightning storm of 12 October 1955
— based on Wikipedia
In the year one thousand nine hundred and fifty my dearest friend, John Malcolm Weir, the
greatest chemist of his day, had given me the sleeping draught: it should tie up the
senses—life itself—for an indefinite period; and when the appointed years were over
life might again be awakened.
English