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Wonder, William

Pseudonym of US author Thomas Kirwan (1829-1911), whose Utopia, Reciprocity (Social and Economic) in the Thirtieth Century; The Coming Cooperative Age: A Forecast of the World's Future (1909), casts its twentieth-century protagonist, via an unexplained form of Time Travel, a millennium hence, where New York presides benignly over a mostly rural land, with good-humoured socialist precepts willingly accepted. These include a Eugenic control over reproduction, the death of Religion, and women modestly prominent (see Women in SF). Under his own name, Kirwan wrote nonfiction, some volumes being instructive about electricity. [JC]

Thomas Kirwan

born Massachusetts: 1829

died 1911

works

• Reciprocity (Social and Economic) in the Thirtieth Century; The Coming Cooperative Age: A Forecast of the World's Future (New York: Cochrane Publishing Company, 1909) [hb/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 09:32 am on 21 April 2026.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/wonder_william>