Gresswell, Elise Kay
Entry updated 16 January 2023. Tagged: Author.
Working name of Elizabeth Gresswell (1877-1944), née Kay, UK author whose Near Future Scientific Romance, When Yvonne Was Dictator (1935), concerns the election of the eighteen-year-old Yvonne initially as prime minister of the UK at a time of Economic disaster, and then, because of the power of her personality, as dictator (see Politics). In order to stem the mass Suicide of those without work, she establishes a socialist regime where Overpopulation is controlled by criminalizing fathering or giving birth to excess children; a prefiguration of the National Health Service is instituted, Religion sidelined, and universal equality for women (see Feminism; Women in SF) established. The birth rate soon falls; the world recovers, a universal peace is negotiated; Utopia is established. [JC]
Elizabeth Kay Gresswell
born 1877
died Southport, Lancashire: 18 March 1944
works
- When Yvonne Was Dictator (London: John Heritage, 1935) [hb/]
links
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