Book Review: The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century by Jane Loudon

In 1818, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein - setting the stage for modern science fiction. A mere 9 years later, Jane Loudon published "The Mummy!" which, to my mind, becomes one of the earliest works of speculative science fiction.

Set in a 22nd Century England which is ruled over by a wise queen, a pair of scientists fly their personal hot-air balloon to Egypt where they use their galvanic battery to re-animate the mummified remains of Cheops. Disaster, naturally, befalls them.

The story itself is... not great. It is three volumes of sanctimonious melodrama. There's courtly intrigue, unrequited love, disinherited nobles, general xenophobia, and - by the end - the increasingly deranged plot peters out. In fairness, the author was a 17 year-old orphan when she wrote this. It could be thought of as a precursor to "Game of Thrones" - lots of world spanning battles full of blood⁰ - with the ultimate goal of winning the kingdom. Mixed in with a supernatural Mummy who - frankly - just wanders in and out of rooms causing mischief. It is, sadly, a somewhat dissatisfying read.

But! It is chock full of the most marvellous vision of the future. Wonderful inventions - some of which have come to pass - and a beautiful idea of the problems technology creates.

We begin, close to a hundred years before it became possible, with the invention of television:

I saw, as in a magic glass, the scenes and characters, which I shall now endeavour to pass before the eyes of the reader.

She also talks about "malleable glass" which is a close match for plastic / perspex. She also has a fixation with asbestos as the material of the future. Ah well!

Her material speculation is delightful:

In the centre was Lord Edmund, surrounded by his staff, all in polished armour; for since an invention had been discovered of rendering steel perfectly flexible, it had been generally used in war.

It's not hard to describe the author as a feminist. She has plenty of strong female characters, and she describes the women of the future thusly:

now that the women had long thrown off those deformers of the human shape ycleped stays, their forms developed themselves into perfect symmetry.

Not just a feminist; elle est un brûleur de soutien-gorge!

The use of electricity features heavily, with our heroes' carrying a...

galvanic battery of fifty surgeon power, (which you must allow is surely enough to re-animate the dead,)

"Surgeon power"! Love it!

She is so steampunk:

In those days, the ancient method of conveying the post having been found much too slow for so enlightened a people, an ingenious scheme had been devised, by which the letters were put into balls and discharged by steam-cannon, from place to place;

What I love about this is the second-order thinking she develops:

to prevent accidents, the mail-post letter-balls were always preceded by one of a similar description, made of thin wood, with a hole in its side, which, collecting the wind as it passed along, made a kind of whizzing noise, to admonish people to keep out of the way

How brilliant is that! It's like guessing that the invention of the motorcar means you have to invent traffic lights!

She also foresees the decline of coal power:

Since the abolition of coal and wood fires, the air of London had become pure and bright,

With characters treating fossil fuels as being consigned to history:

"You know, Edric, in ancient times, the caloric employed in culinary purposes, and indeed for all the common usages of life, was produced by the combustion of wood, and of a black bituminous substance, or amphilites, drawn from the bowels of the earth, called coal, of which you may yet see specimens in the cabinets of the curious."

The book also strays into the impact of technology on domestic life, describing:

a patent steam coffee-machine, by which coffee was roasted, ground, made, and poured out with an ad libitum of boiling milk and sugar, all in the short space of five minutes.

She's a good 100 years ahead of reality there.

Loudon was writing about 40 years after the Montgolfière balloons were demonstrated - yet she anticipates them becoming obsolete:

"Surely you don't mean to travel the whole distance in the balloon? I thought, of course, you would adopt the present fashionable mode of travelling, and after mounting the seventeen miles or thereabouts, which is necessary to get clear of the mundane attraction, to wait there till the turning of the globe should bring Egypt directly under our feet."

She's describing space travel! Go straight up, wait, come down. Outstanding!

The book also looks to the future of the legal system:

knowing the general corruption and inaccuracy of witnesses, the judges of this enlightened court reject verbal testimony altogether, and form their correct and infallible judgments upon the sure and undeviating basis of that most profound and useful of all sciences — craniology."

Hey, at least she doesn't go all-in with eugenics!

There's political speculation in there - a neat foreshadowing of Queen Amidala of Naboo:

she ordered that all future queens should be chosen, by the people, from such female members of her family as might be between twenty and twenty-five years of age, at the time of the throne's becoming vacant.

And she also gets the "Open Government" movement:

This [code of laws] was open to the whole kingdom; and cases being decided by principle instead of precedent, litigation was almost unknown: for as the laws were fully and clearly explained, so as to be understood by every body

The book is, at time, surprisingly funny. Some of the characters are such recognisable clichés that they'd fit into any modern drama. I particularly like how all the "lower class" servants speak so eloquently - with one saying:

"That the worthy gentleman, your respectable progenitor, requests you instantly to put in exercise your locomotive powers to join him on the terrace, to the end, that there your superior visual faculties may afford soulagement to the mental anxiety under which he at present labours, by aiding him to develop the intelligence conveyed to him by the telegraphic machine."

It's also deeply satirical:

The prejudices of the people, too, were wounded; they had been so accustomed to promises of reformation and relief from taxation, upon the accession of a new Sovereign, that they were disappointed at not receiving them, although they knew from experience, that they meant nothing:

And:

The multitude generally hate those entrusted with the execution of the laws [...] and their natural conceit and presumption were flattered by the attention paid to their complaints; till, by his judicious management, Lord Edmund found that he had obtained the entire devotion of the mob, and could wield them at his pleasure.

No parallels there with some modern politicians, eh?

Oh, obviously she predicts pandemic...

Indeed, it was not till after the country had been almost depopulated by the dreadfully infectious disease that prevailed about two hundred years ago, that a law was passed to prevent the interment of the dead in London

All of this was in the first two volumes. By which point I was getting a little tired of the bizarre plot. But this exchanged pulled me back in:

"You may not find my project so wild as it appears," rejoined Roderick. "The moon is a very pretty, mild, modest-looking planet, and I must own I should like amazingly to see what kind of inhabitants she contains; and if I should determine to go there, here is a gentleman who I am sure will be quite ready to accompany me." Dr. Entwerfen entered the tent as he spoke. "Of what was your Majesty speaking?" asked he. "Of a voyage to the moon," said Roderick. "Will you go with me?"

WTAF?!?! Moon travel!?!? Disappointingly, nothing is further mentioned of this plot point!

Luckily, there are a few more pieces of speculative inventions casually mentioned in an aside:

she showed me this morning a plan for making aërial bridges to convey heavy weights from one steeple to another; a machine for stamping shoes and boots at one blow out of a solid piece of leather; a steam-engine for milking cows; and an elastic summer-house that might be folded up so as to be put into a man's pocket!

She also offhandedly invents medibots:

Prince Ferdinand and Lord Edmund had their wounds dressed by the automaton steam surgeon belonging to the prison, which, being properly arranged and wound up, staunched the blood, spread the plasters, and affixed the bandages with as much skill as though it had done nothing but walk a hospital all its life.

There's a good deal of automation - and steam-powered robots - on display. And, of course, a speaking clock:

four bright flashes from a neighbouring clock announced the completion of some hour, and the next instant the solemn deep-toned bell distinctly pronounced the word "one,"

Not quite Alexa, but close! There's also password-protected robots:

you are certainly quite beside yourself; don't you see it is an automaton? nothing can stop it but the proper check-string, and that is in that little guard house, round which you see the soldiers lying [...] the automaton sentinel had again resumed his measured, beaten track.

I'd read an excerpt of "The Mummy!" in a book about robo-judges - that's what led me to seek it out. Here's Loudon describing such a thing:

An automaton judge sat with great dignity upon a magnificent throne, looking, though a little heavy, quite as wise and sagacious as judges are wont to look. A real jury (that is, a jury of flesh and blood,) was ranged upon one side of him, and some automaton counsel sate in front, their briefs lying upon the table before them, and having behind each a clerk ready to wind him up when he should be wanted to speak; it being found that the profession of the law gives such an amazing volubility of words, that it was dangerous to wind up the counsel too soon, lest they should go off in the wrong place, and so disturb the silence of the court. In different parts of these counsel were holes, into which briefs being put they were gradually ground to pieces as the counsel were being wound up, till they came forth in words at the mouth: whilst the language in which the counsel pleaded, depended entirely upon the hole into which the brief was put, there being a different one for every possible tongue. [...] Lord Maysworth watched the moment; but being afraid to trust his beloved brief into any hands but his own, unfortunately in his agitation, he popt it into the wrong hole, and when the counsel began to speak, he burst forth in French! Words are wanting to express Lord Maysworth's unutterable consternation at this unfortunate accident. "Stop! stop!" cried he, "Hush! hush! Can nobody stop him?" but the inexorable counsel would not stop:—for once wound up, and properly set in motion, not all the powers of Heaven and earth combined could stop him till he had fairly run down. "What shall I do?" cried Lord Maysworth, in an agony of despair; "for, if the judge and jury don't understand French, my fine oration will be utterly lost." "Oh, if that be all," said the clerk, "your lordship need not distress yourself, for as soon as I found what was going on, I ran up to the judge and pulled out his lordship's French stop!"

Isn't that a lovely piece of satire on the perils of relying on technology?

So, is this a good book? No. Not really. But it is an important book. Not just a delightful curio, it is unashamedly feminist future-gazing.

You can read "The Mummy!" for free at Project Gutenberg