6 h 4 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 149 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 149 pagesAbout this book
Beyond the polar ice lies a world without men, where women govern, science flourishes, and poverty has no place.
Vera Zarovitch knows what it means to live under harsh rule. A Russian woman driven into exile, she escapes toward the far north and reaches Mizora, a hidden land inside the earth. The women who welcome her live by principles that challenge everything she knows about power and freedom.
In Mary E. Bradley Lane’s Mizora: A Prophecy, schools, laboratories, and daily customs become windows into another possible world. Education belongs to every child, and science removes want and toil. As Vera learns from her hosts, their questions turn her gaze back toward the injustices of the country she leaves behind.
What you’ll discover
- A world beyond ice Follow Vera into a warm, hidden country where familiar social rules no longer apply.
- Women shape the future Explore a society that places governing, invention, and teaching entirely in women’s hands.
- Learning at the center Visit a country where educating every child matters more than any other public work.
- Science against hardship Discover how Mizora imagines knowledge lifting the burdens of poverty and daily toil.
- An outsider’s searching gaze See Vera compare two worlds and question the inequalities her hosts find so startling.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy imagined worlds, early science fiction, tales of daring escape, and big ideas about schooling, fair work and a society built on knowledge.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Russian noblewoman is driven into exile
- Abandoned among the Esquimaux, she chooses an unknown sea
- A wall of glowing mist leads her somewhere new
- A silent city of beautiful, learned women welcomes her
- Free education is the heart of the nation
- Chemistry makes bread, fuel and comfort cheap
- Every kind of work earns honor and respect
- Honest government and fair trade run quietly
- Light and distance are tamed by electricity
- One missing question hangs over a perfect land
Who’s who
- The narratorA Russian noblewoman, exiled and shipwrecked, who finds Mizora and longs to carry its lessons back to her own world.
- WaunaThe Preceptress's daughter, a warm, athletic and curious young woman who guides the narrator through Mizora and becomes her dearest friend.
- The PreceptressWauna's mother, a leading scientist and head of the National College, who explains Mizora's history and urges the narrator to educate her people.
- AlexisThe narrator's devoted husband, left behind in Russia with their infant son when she is sentenced to Siberia.
- The chemist cookA celebrated chemist who chooses kitchen work, and whose dignity shames the narrator's snobbery.
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Mizora: A Prophecy
by Mary E. Bradley Lane · 1880
A Russian exile rows into a land where bread is made from stone and no man is anywhere to be seen.
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In short
What would you find if you rowed past the edge of the map? A Russian noblewoman, sentenced to the Siberian mines and cast adrift in the Arctic, finds a hidden land.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Russian noblewoman is driven into exile
The narrator is a Russian noblewoman who tells her story as a duty to science and to the generations that will follow her. She grows up rich and powerful, studies in Paris, and comes to admire American government. Back in Russia, she speaks those opinions aloud, and the state marks her as dangerous.
The blow falls during a visit. She visits a Polish school friend, and on the anniversary of the Battle of Grochow they join a crowd of thousands praying for the dead. Russian soldiers break up the gathering, and her friend dies by a bayonet. In her grief she denounces her government and is sentenced to the Siberian mines for life.
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What is Mizora: A Prophecy about?
A Russian noblewoman, exiled and shipwrecked in the Arctic, sails into a hidden land inside the earth. She finds a rich, peaceful society built on science and free schooling, and she tries to understand its secret.
Who is Wauna in Mizora?
Wauna is the daughter of the Preceptress of the National College. She becomes the narrator's guide, teacher and closest friend, showing her the cities, schools and customs of the land.
What does the word Mizora mean in the book?
Mizora is the name of the hidden country inside the earth. The book also gives the name Wauna a meaning, saying that in the language of Mizora it stands for happiness.
The author
Mary E. Bradley Lane
1844–1930 · American novelist and teacher
Mary E. Bradley Lane was an American writer remembered for Mizora, one of the earliest feminist utopian novels — a tale of an all-female civilization hidden inside the earth, first serialized anonymously in the 1880s, decades before better-known feminist utopias appeared.
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