10 h 20 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if science could copy the woman you love—and replace the mind you cannot bear?
On a winter night in New Jersey, Lord Celian Ewald comes to Thomas Edison in despair. He loves the beauty of Alicia Clary, a young singer, but her practical, vain nature leaves him unhappy. In his fictional laboratory at Menlo Park, Edison offers to build a double with Alicia’s face, body and voice.
In Tomorrow’s Eve, Auguste de Villiers de L’Isle-Adam blends science fantasy, ghost story and sharp satire. Edison’s answer is Hadaly, a veiled, graceful android with a sad voice. Through long conversations, the novel asks whether Ewald seeks another person or only his own ideal—and whether a machine can answer the troubles of the heart.
What you’ll discover
- An inventor as sorcerer Meet a fictional Edison whose machines seem close to magic and whose ambitions reach into love.
- A troubling ideal Follow Ewald’s longing for a beloved who matches the image he carries inside.
- The mystery of Hadaly Encounter an android whose graceful presence leaves Ewald unsure what she truly is.
- Science under a Gothic shadow Enter a world where faith in invention meets the haunting unease of a ghost story.
- Satire with a sharp edge Discover a critique of money, comfort and an age that places its trust in machines.
Who will love it
For readers who love early science fiction, Gothic atmosphere and sharp social satire, and anyone curious about where robots in fiction began.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Edison Receives a Visitor at Menlo Park
- Ewald Loves a Body but Not a Mind
- Edison Offers to Build a Double
- Hadaly Wakes in the Underground Chamber
- Illusion, Love and the Hollow Modern World
- A Gothic Tale Told Through Talk
Who’s who
- Lord Celian EwaldA young English nobleman in despair over a love he cannot make happy, he comes to his friend Edison to say goodbye.
- Thomas EdisonThe inventor of Menlo Park, drawn as a modern sorcerer, who believes science can answer even the troubles of the heart.
- Alicia ClaryA beautiful young singer whose looks are worthy of a goddess, but whose practical and vain nature leaves Ewald in despair.
- HadalyThe android Edison builds, veiled and graceful, who speaks with a sad voice and leaves Ewald unsure what she truly is.
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Read and hear La Eva futura in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
La Eva futura
by Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam · 1886
In Edison's laboratory, a despairing lord receives an offer to replace the woman he loves with an android.
Challenging10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Tomorrow's Eve is a French novel by Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, published in 1886. It sets a real inventor, Thomas Edison, in a fictional laboratory and asks a strange question.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Edison Receives a Visitor at Menlo Park
The story opens at Menlo Park, New Jersey, where Thomas Edison works among machines that seem close to magic. Villiers does not paint him as a plain businessman. He calls him a sorcerer of the modern age, a man alone at night with wires, glass and the strange new powers of electricity. The first pages show Edison in a dreamy mood, thinking about the discoveries he has made and the ones still to come.
The book lingers over his inventions, above all the phonograph, a device able to catch a human voice and give it back. For Villiers this is not just a clever tool. It suggests that things once thought to belong to the soul, such as speech, can be copied by matter. That idea will matter a great deal later on.
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What is Tomorrow's Eve about?
It follows Lord Ewald, who loves a beautiful but shallow singer, and the inventor Thomas Edison, who offers to build an artificial woman for him. It is a story of love, illusion and science.
Did Tomorrow's Eve invent the android?
The novel did not invent the idea of artificial people, but it helped make the word android common in fiction. Its Hadaly is often named among the first modern portraits of a humanlike machine in a novel.
Is Edison in Tomorrow's Eve the real Thomas Edison?
He is named after the real inventor and set at Menlo Park, but the character is a literary creation. Villiers shapes him into a half-mythic wizard of electricity to suit his own themes and satire.
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