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(1852-1915) US businessman and author whose anti-socialist Dystopia, The Scarlet Empire (1906), is clearly intended to counter Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888). A young socialist American thinks to commit Suicide by jumping into the sea, but awakens in a nightmarish Atlantis, a Lost World Keep protected from the ocean above by a great dome, where – despite a healthy plethora of convenient Inventions – the obsession with regimented equality leads to grotesqueries prophetic of those later dreamt of by Yevgeny Zamiatin in My (ms trans Gregory Zilboorg as We 1924). The use of "letheweed" to Drug the citizens nightly also prefigures Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). The protagonist, cured of socialism, escapes with the young woman he loves, destroying the dome – and hence the entire society – as he departs. [JC]
born Allegheny County, Pennsylvania: 26 March 1852
died Indianapolis, Indiana: 12 May 1915
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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 06:34 am on 10 May 2026.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/parry_david_maclean>