After London: Or, Wild England [Paperback]

Richard Jefferies (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2007

The meadows were green, and so was the rising wheat which had been sown, but which neither had nor would receive any further care. Such arable fields as had not been sown, but where the last stubble had been ploughed up, were overrun with couch-grass, and where the short stubble had not been ploughed, the weeds hid it.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: BiblioBazaar (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142647461X
• ISBN-13: 978-1426474613
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,191,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Leafy Future, June 16, 2002

By 

Greg Hughes - See all my reviews

This review is from: After London: Or, Wild England (The World's classics)

It would probably be accurate to call "After London" a botanist's delight. Richard Jefferies describes in great detail a world of the far future in which the wonders of our own civilization are mostly forgotten, or seen as fables. (Until Heinrich Schliemann dug up the ruins, the city of Troy was a legend also. Can we be certain that Atlantis was a legend?)

Much of England is covered in forests, the relics of our own civilization buried under thickets and shrubbery. London, once a centre of culture and trade, is long gone. Society has become medieval once more. Skills like reading and writing have been preserved, but these are forbidden to all but the nobles. Slavery is common and wars between cities are frequent.

It is almost certain that John Christopher has read this book. If you read the "Tripods" trilogy and the "Prince in Waiting" trilogy, you will see certain similarities.

In many of the post-technological stories I've read the one invention of ours that gets mentioned the most is the railroad, possibly because it helped us conquer the tyranny of distance, and made the world more accessible. In the early pages of "After London" the railroad is mentioned, though not by name, and references are made regarding our ability to communicate over a great distance with wires.

The main character in "After London" is 25-year old Felix, a sensitive character living in a world that has no place for sensitivity. Often ridiculed for his interest in learning rather than war and hunting, Felix carries out a plan to strike out on his own by embarking on a journey of discovery. Eventually Felix does make something of himself and greatness is thrust upon him.

A barbarous future is often imagined for us after a nuclear war or some other cataclysm, but in "After London" the cause of our decline is obscure and hazy. We can't be certain that the society in "After London" will eventually reach the heights from which it had fallen. Most of our inventions, like the light bulb and penicillin, were accidents. There was an ancient civilization that could produce metal of a better quality than we can produce now, but the skill is lost.

"After London" is a very descriptive novel with minimal dialogue. It is more concerned with the world it portrays than the characters who inhabit it. This is a pivotal work in the post-holocaust genre.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites, November 10, 2009

By 

Someone's Mom (Chesapeake, VA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: After London: Or, Wild England (Paperback)

I wonder why I'm even bothering to review this book. I mean, other than me, there are probably NO lovers of late Victorian post-apocalyptic literature out there (though if there are, I'll marry you. Just don't tell my husband). This is a wonderful story which forces you to entertain alternate trajectories or 'counterfactual presuppositions' as we call them in internaitonal relations (can you tell I've been hitting the sauce?). This book actually has a lot of in common with MODERN post-apocalyptics, particularly those which focus on sustainable development. THat said, the premise is better than the actual narrative, but isn't that ALWAYS the case with post-apocto science fiction? The best passages by far are those which describe the sunken London which has been overrun by the flooding of the Thames, and the way one looks down through the water into the London Bridge and Tower of London below. Haunting, beautiful, elegiac. Mesmerizing. What a shame no one will ever read this review and share these sentiments with me. We're a small club, we lovers of Victorian post-apocalyptic literature. But we're loyal, fascinating and fierce. YMMV.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An England after some catastrophic event, May 20, 1999

By 

R. D. Allison ([e-mail]) (Gainesville, Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After London ; Or, Wild England (Science fiction) (Hardcover)

This 19th-century science fiction novel by Richard Jefferies (1848-1887), an English writer and naturalist, depicts an England of the distant future in which most of the human populace has either died from some cataclysmic event or plague or they have been removed to some other place. The people still living in England have no record of what happened, the event occurring centuries earlier. Most of the central part of the British Isle is now covered by a giant lake. A poisonous swamp covers the site of old London. Much of the novel is a description of this future England. The people live in a feudal-like environment and the hero of the story, Felix, sets out on a quest in a canoe to find fame and fortune so that he may win the hand of the daughter of a neighboring baron. This is probably one of the earliest novels (if not the earliest) depicting a future Earth following some cataclysmic event. This "sub-genre" or sub-category will form a significant portion of the science fiction literature. Any serious student of science fiction literature should read it.