Progress and/as Utopia in James Hume Nisbet’s "The Great Secret: A Tale of To-morrow"
Progress and/as Utopia in James Hume Nisbet’s "The Great Secret: A Tale of To-morrow"

Author(s): Marta Komsta
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Philology, History of Art, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: utopia; dystopia; afterlife; progress; James Hume Nisbet; anarchism
Summary/Abstract: Dedicated to “all those who, not quite satisfied with to-day, may be seeking after a happier to-morrow”, James Hume Nisbet’s "The Great Secret: A Tale of Tomorrow" (1895) stands out from the author’s predominantly adventure-oriented oeuvre as a work with a distinctly consolatory and didactic inclination, represented in the novel by the depiction of the afterlife as a utopian land of plenitude and comfort. This essay seeks thus to examine the relationship between the generic paradigm of utopia and the notion of progress, the latter contextualized in Nisbet’s novel with regard to the issues of scientific advancement and spiritual evolution. The author argues that by juxtaposing the dynamic spatio-temporal model of the post-mortem utopia with the implicitly dystopian depiction of late Victorian society, "The Great Secret" foregrounds the ideals of moral restoration and spiritual development as the foundations of a better future.

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