What Not: A Prophetic Comedy
by Rose Macaulay
2021-02-01 04:41:34
What Not: A Prophetic Comedy
by Rose Macaulay
2021-02-01 04:41:34
Published in 1918, What Not was hastily withdrawn due to a number of potentially libellous pages, and was reissued in 1919, but had lost its momentum. Now republished for the first time with the suppressed pages reinstated, What Not is a lost classic...
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Published in 1918, What Not was hastily withdrawn due to a number of potentially libellous pages, and was reissued in 1919, but had lost its momentum. Now republished for the first time with the suppressed pages reinstated, What Not is a lost classic of feminist protest at social engineering, and rage at media manipulation. Kitty Grammont and Nicholas Chester are in love. Kitty is certified as an A for breeding purposes, but politically ambitious Chester has been uncertificated, and may not marry. Kitty wields power as a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Brains, which makes these classifications, but does not have the freedom to marry who she wants. They ignore the restrictions, and carry on a discreet affair. But it isn''t discreet enough for the media: the popular press, determined to smash the brutal regime of the Ministry of Brains, has found out about Kitty and Chester, and scents an opportunity for a scandalous exposure. Aldous Huxley was a frequent guest at Macaulay''s flat while she was writing What Not. Fourteen years later, his Brave New World borrowed many of Macaulay''s ideas for Huxley''s own prophetic vision.
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