To-day and To-morrow
Entry updated 3 April 2023. Tagged: Publication.
This relatively early venture in popular Futures Studies comprises a series of eighty-six hardback monographs published from 1923 by the London house Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company. In these slim volumes, Scientists and others speculated (not always entirely seriously) about the future. Contributions to To-day and To-morrow by authors with entries in this encyclopedia are listed below. Perhaps the most strikingly forward-looking and intermittently prophetic of all these is J D Bernal's The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul (1929 chap). J B S Haldane's Daedalus; Or, Science and the Future (1923 chap), the first title in the series, is also of great interest. So is the second, Bertrand Russell's Icarus; Or, the Future of Science (1924 chap) – described in the publisher's dustjacket copy as "a companion volume to Mr Haldane's Daedalus" but in fact, as signalled by its title, a riposte to the earlier volume's expression of optimism. [DRL]
relevant titles (selected)
- J D Bernal. The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1929) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Bonamy Dobrée. Timotheus: The Future of the Theatre (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1925) [chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- John Gloag. Artifex; Or, the Future of Craftsmanship (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1926) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Robert Graves. Lars Porsena; Or, the Future of Swearing and Improper Language (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1927) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Robert Graves. Mrs Fisher; Or, the Future of Humour (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1928) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- J B S Haldane. Daedalus; Or, Science and the Future (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1923) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- J B S Haldane. Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1925) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Gerald Heard. Narcissus: An Anatomy of Clothes (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1924) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Winifred Holtby. Eutychus: The Future of the Pulpit (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1928) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Muriel Jaeger. Sisyphus: Or, the Limits of Psychology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1929) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- C E M Joad. Diogenes; Or, the Future of Leisure (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1928) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- C E M Joad. Thrasymachus; Or, the Future of Morals (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1928) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- A M Low. Wireless Possibilities (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1924) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- André Maurois. Le chapitre suivant (Paris: Aux éditions du Sagittaire, chez Simon Kra, 1927) [chap: Fragments of Universal History: pb/]
- The Next Chapter: The War Against the Moon (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co, 1928) [chap: trans anon of the above: Fragments of Universal History: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- J Leslie Mitchell. Hanno; Or, the Future of Exploration (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1928) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Bertrand Russell. Icarus; Or, the Future of Science (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1924) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- Bertrand Russell. What I Believe (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1925) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
- W J Turner. Orpheus; Or, the Music of the Future (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, 1926) [nonfiction: chap: in the publisher's To-day and To-morrow series: hb/nonpictorial]
further reading
- Max Saunders. Imagined Futures: Writing, Science and Modernity in the To-day and To-morrow Books Series, 1923-31 (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2019) [nonfiction: hb/]
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