WVU Press has released “The Doom of the Great City; Being the Narrative of a Survivor, Written A.D. 1942,” a critical edition of what is arguably considered to be the first story of modern urban apocalypse.
Authored by William Delisle Hay and originally published in 1880, this novella imagines the destruction of London as the result of human-induced environmental devastation.
The story, told as a reflection from the future in 1942, recounts a young man’s fight for survival amidst a toxic fog that kills his family and ultimately forces him to abandon the city.
This urban apocalypse narrative connects to current pressing cultural discussions on global warming, modern life in cities, public health and the interconnectivity of human life on earth.
This particular edition is groundbreaking in that it is the most comprehensive published. Scholars Michael Kramp, Lehigh University, and Sarita Jayanty Mizin, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, provide their insightful commentary in addition to 25 primary sources from 1815 through 1931.
The editors place the narrative in dialogue with 19th century concerns about climate change, global perspectives on the city, the London fog, Victorian public health, Victorian suburbanization and visions of the end.
It also includes selections from Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man” and Florence Nightingale’s “Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes.” This work is part of the “Salvaging the Anthropocene Series” edited by Stephanie Foote.