''L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais'' (literally, in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, ''The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One''; but the title has been rendered into English as ''Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred'' or ''Memoirs of the Year 2500'', and also as ''Astraea's Return, or The Halcyon Days of France in the Year 2440: A Dream)'' is a 1771
novel by
Louis-Sébastien Mercier
Louis-Sébastien Mercier (6 June 1740 – 25 April 1814) was a French dramatist and writer, whose 1771 novel ''L'An 2440'' is an example of proto-science fiction.
Early life and education
He was born in Paris to a humble family: his father was a ...
.
It has been described as one of the most popular and controversial novels of the 18th century, one of the earliest works of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
, and the first work of
utopian fiction
Utopian and dystopian fiction are genres of speculative fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to ...
set in the future rather than at a distant place in the present.
Plot
The novel describes the adventures of an unnamed man who, after engaging in a heated discussion with a philosopher friend about the injustices of Paris, falls asleep and finds himself in a Paris several centuries into the future. He wanders through the changed city, eventually ending up in the ruins of the
Palace of Versailles. Mercier's hero notes everything that catches his fancy in this futuristic Paris.
Public space
A public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. Roads (including the pavement), public squares, parks, and beaches are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to ...
and the
justice system
The contemporary national legal systems are generally based on one of four basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history and ...
have been reorganized. Citizens' garb is comfortable and practical. Hospitals are effective and science-based. There are no
monks
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
, priests, prostitutes,
beggars
Begging (also panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public plac ...
, dancing masters (i.e., dance teachers),
pastry chefs
A pastry chef or pâtissier (; the French female version of the word is pâtissière ), is a station chef in a professional kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, desserts, breads and other baked goods. They are employed in large hotels ...
,
standing armies,
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
,
arbitrary arrest
Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention are the arrest or detention of an individual in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of ...
,
taxes
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...
,
guilds,
foreign trade
International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories because there is a need or want of goods or services. (see: World economy)
In most countries, such trade represents a significant ...
, coffee, tea, or tobacco: such occupations, institutions, and products have been adjudged to be useless and immoral – as has much previously written literature, which has been
willingly destroyed by the future librarians, who proudly display their library, reduced to a single room of only the most valuable works.
Written only 18 years before the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
of 1789, the book describes a future secular, pacifist France that has been established through a peaceful revolution led by a "
philosopher-king" who has set up a system resembling a
parliamentary monarchy
A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies dif ...
.
The future
utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
,
egalitarian
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
France is portrayed as having
no religion and no military.
Editions and translations
Everett C. Wilkie Jr. notes that there have been many misstatements concerning the novel's publication history and Mercier's bibliography in general.
According to Evelyn L. Forget, Mercier finished the first manuscript in 1768, though Wilkie writes that parts of the book clearly date to 1770, as they reference events of that year.
Sources also vary as to the year of the book's first edition, citing 1770
or 1771.
Wilkie writes it might have been "pulled off the press so late in 1770 that it was dated 1771, the year it was actually sold", but "despite evidence to the contrary
s no known edition dating to 1770 has been found scholarly practice has made the supposed 1770 edition of this novel an enduring bibliographical ghost". The confusion is partly the fault of Mercier himself, who at different times gave both dates as the year of the first edition's publication. Wilkie concludes that the only fact that Mercier was consistent about is that the first edition was published in Amsterdam by E. van Harrevelt, and existing evidence strongly favors 1771 – probably the summer – as the correct date of publication.
Due to its controversial criticism of the ''
Ancien Régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for "ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for ...
'' and portrayal of a
secular future, the novel was at first published illicitly, appearing anonymously, smuggled into France, and sold by underground booksellers.
It was banned in France; in Spain by the
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
in 1778, supposedly
burned by the Spanish king himself; and by the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
in 1773, placed on the ''
Index Librorum Prohibitorum.''
Nevertheless, it quickly became an undergroud bestseller in France, with over twenty editions during Mercier's lifetime, as well as a number of translations abroad, with many unauthorized and sometimes altered editions.
It has been described as "one of the eighteenth century's most successful books" and "one of the most controversial", with an estimated 60,000 copies in several languages printed during that time, provoking a gamut of contemporary evaluations.
By the late 1770s Mercier admitted his authorship of the novel, and his name finally appeared in the 1791 edition, after the fall of the ''Ancien Régime''; due to Mercier's late admission of authorship, some early versions were attributed to
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
or to
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...
.
![L'An Deux Mille Quatre Cent Quarante](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/L%27An_Deux_Mille_Quatre_Cent_Quarante._Vol.II.jpg)
It was first translated to English 1772 by William Hooper, and was the first utopia published in the United States:
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
and
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...
owned the first edition.
Around the same time it was translated to Dutch and German, and a few years later into Italian.
For the English edition, Hooper changed the title to ''Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred'' or ''Memoirs of the Year 2500'' and added a number of footnotes. Mercier's choice of the somewhat awkward number 2440 might be related to it being his 700th birthday, whereas Hooper's title, described as "perplexing" by one scholar, is likely due to his preference for a simpler, rounded up title.
Mercier published four editions (1771, 1774, 1786 and 1779), although there is some further controversy surrounding the 1774 edition, whose authorship Mercier later denied.
The revised edition of 1786, now under the title ''L'an deux mille quatre cent quarante, Suivi de L'Homme de Fer: Songe'' (lit. ''The Year Two Thousand Four Hundred and Forty, Followed by The Iron Man: Dream,'' with ''L'Homme de Fer: Songe'' being a new, separate short story
) was in turn partially translated to English by Harriot Augusta Freeman under another liberally changed title, ''Astraea's Return, or The Halcyon Days of France in the Year 2440: A Dream'' (according to the
''Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', as of 2019, no official English translation of the revised 1786 version exists).
Neither the Hooper nor Freeman's translations were authorized by Mercier, and both translators openly admitted they did not know who the author was (he was first attributed as the author in English in an 1802 translation of his work).
Despite its popularity in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the work was quickly eclipsed by others and "almost forgotten" by the 20th century.
Discussion
''L'An 2440'' was one of Mercier's most famous works.
It has been described as an "important milestone in the evolution of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
", particularly of the
utopian fiction
Utopian and dystopian fiction are genres of speculative fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to ...
variety, "
n its time anexceedingly popular
ork of
Ork or ORK may refer to:
* Ork (folklore), a mountain demon of Tyrol folklore
* Ork (video game), ''Ork'' (video game), a 1991 game for the Amiga and Atari ST systems
* Ork (Warhammer 40,000), Ork (''Warhammer 40,000''), a fictional species in the ...
proto-science fiction", and one of the first works in the
genre focusing on the near future.
Brian M. Stableford noted that "it laid the groundwork for the first theoretical discussion of the potential scope of
futuristic fiction".
Its plot structure, showing a familiar setting centuries into the future, instead of some far-away but contemporary place, has been credited with starting "the crucial shift of utopia from the imaginary island to future time".
The book has also been described as "the first
uchronia
The term ''uchronia'' refers to a hypothetical or fictional time period of our world, in contrast to altogether-fictional lands or worlds. The concept is similar to alternate history, but uchronic times are not easily defined but are placed ma ...
".
However, earlier novels by other writers had been set in the near future. These include
Francis Cheynell's ''Aulicus His Dream'' (1644),
Jacques Guttin's ''Epigone. Histoire du siècle futur'' (1659),
Samuel Madden
Samuel Madden (23 December 1686 – 31 December 1765) was an Irish author. His works include ''Themistocles; The Lover of His Country'', ''Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland'', and ''Memoirs of the Twentieth Century' ...
's ''
The Memoirs of the Twentieth Century'' (1733), and the anonymously written ''The Reign of George VI'', 1900–1925 (1763).
Mercier's novel has been described as having been inspired by the
Enlightenment philosophy of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
and by earlier utopian fiction such as
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
's ''
New Atlantis
''New Atlantis'' is an incomplete utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1626. It appeared unheralded and tucked into the back of a longer work of natural history, ''Sylva Sylvarum'' (forest of materials). In ''New Atlan ...
'' (1626).
''The Year 2440'' also inspired many later authors. Some of the earliest works to be influenced by it are
Betje Wolff
Elizabeth ("Betje") Wolff-Bekker (24 July 17385 November 1804) was a Dutch novelist who, with Agatha "Aagje" Deken, wrote several popular epistolary novels such as ''Sara Burgerhart'' (1782) and ''Willem Levend'' (1784).
Biography
Betje Bekker w ...
's ''Holland in het jaar 2440'' (1777),
Vladimir Odoyevsky
Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoyevsky (russian: Влади́мир Фёдорович Одо́евский, p=ɐˈdojɪfskʲɪj; Владимир Федорович Одоевский. Библиографический указатель. Энц ...
's ''
The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters'' (1835),
and
Mary Griffith's ''
Three Hundred Years Hence
''Three Hundred Years Hence'' is a utopian science fiction novel by author Mary Griffith, published in 1836. It is the first known utopian novel written by an American woman. The novel was originally published in 1836 as part of Griffith's col ...
'' (1836).
The growing speculation about the near future has been related to the growing popularity of the idea of
progress
Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...
.
One of the novel's themes is
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, and support for its
abolition, and even advocacy of some limited
decolonization
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
– tempered, however, by Mercier's view of
Western culture
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
(defined primarily on the superior example of
French culture
The culture of France has been shaped by geography, by historical events, and by foreign and internal forces and groups. France, and in particular Paris, has played an important role as a center of high culture since the 17th century and from t ...
) and by his patriotism, which sees France as the world's new, benevolent
hegemon
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over other city-states. ...
.
Another theme concerns gender equality, about which Mercier has again been described as both progressive and conservative: in his future world, marriages are based on love,
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...
is legal, and
dowries
A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment b ...
are abolished; but ideal women are "free" to devote themselves to life at home as "good wives and mothers".
''The Year 2440'' has been described as an important example of French pre-Revolutionary literary dissidence, and even as a veiled call to action – something made more explicit in the preface to later editions, in which Mercier urges the coming of an "age of progress and universal happiness", claiming his novel as
prophetic
In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pret ...
(drawing much derision from contemporaries).
Robert Darnton
Robert Choate Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian and academic librarian who specializes in 18th-century France.
He was director of the Harvard University Library from 2007 to 2016.
Life
Darnton was born in New York ...
writes that "despite its self-proclaimed character of fantasy... ''L'An 2440'' demanded to be read as a serious guidebook to the future. It offered an astonishing new perspective: the future as a fait accompli and the present as a distant past. Who could resist the temptation to participate in such a thought experiment? And once engaged in it, who could fail to see that it exposed the rottenness of the society before his eyes, the Paris of the eighteenth century?"
References
External links
* Full text o
''L'an deux mille quatre cent quarante. Rêve s'il en fut jamais''(in French, various editions
including on French Wikisource* Full text of ''Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred''
Volume IVolume II(in English, 1772 translation by Hooper)
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Year 2440, The
18th-century French novels
Utopian novels
Novels set in Paris
French science fiction novels
Censored books
1771 novels
Fiction set in the 25th century