Summary
Summary of New Amazonia
Key ideas
Key idea 1
An imagined country answers a protest
Mrs. George Corbett answers women who reject the vote by imagining a country governed by women. Her narrator falls asleep over magazines and wakes in New Amazonia, where familiar assumptions about power, health and independence no longer hold. Comedy comes with her in the form of a vain British dandy who cannot accept what he sees.
The imagined country makes a political argument through encounters rather than protest alone. Its achievements invite admiration, but its rules also raise questions about who belongs and who deserves a voice.
Key idea 2
Two strangers wake beyond familiar rules
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Key idea 3
Male importance meets amused disbelief
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Key idea 4
Political struggle creates New Amazonia
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Key idea 5
The state takes a mother's role
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Key idea 6
Public health has a chilling price
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Key idea 7
Public encounters test familiar beliefs
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Key idea 8
Admiration and unease belong together
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Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who enjoy imagined futures, early feminist writing, satire of Victorian manners and debates about how a fair society could be built. It rewards anyone curious about the arguments behind votes for women.
What this book is
New Amazonia is a feminist utopian novel by Mrs. George Corbett, who died in 1930. It appeared in 1889, the same year its narrator believes it to be. Corbett wrote it in anger after a magazine printed a protest signed by women who said they did not want the vote. She answers that protest with a whole imagined country, and she adds a good deal of comedy along the way.
The narrator falls asleep over her magazines and wakes in a garden in the year 2472. The place is Ireland, now called New Amazonia, and women of great height and strength run it. You meet a college of giants, a state that acts as a mother to every citizen, a religion without hell, and a vain British dandy who cannot believe any of it. You also meet some hard questions about health, marriage and who deserves a say in government. Let us begin in that garden, where the first surprise sits up in an apple tree.
In this summary
- 1A dream begins in a strange gardenFree
- 2Giants who cannot believe in men
- 3How Ireland became a land of women
- 4A state that mothers its people
- 5Youth, long life, and chilling logic
- 6A visitor tests the new world
Key point 1 of 6
A dream begins in a strange garden
The book opens in the narrator's study. She is reading the Nineteenth Century magazine and is furious about an article, signed by well-known women, that claims women do not want the vote. She sorts her sex into three groups. There are ladies who live on the money and rank of their husbands, there are women who value independence and work, and there are slaves who have been taught to accept their lot. She cheers a counter-protest in another magazine, the Fortnightly Review, and then drifts into a pleasant fancy of women in Parliament before she falls asleep.
She wakes in a glorious garden. The flowers are brilliant, the birds sing overhead, and the fruit is far finer than any she has known. Then a voice nearby asks if she lives here or has been taking hashish. It belongs to a young man perched on a tree branch, baffled by how he got there.
He is the Honourable Augustus Fitz-Musicus, a dandy of about thirty with a golden mustache he loves to stroke. He boasts that his ancestor was King George the Fourth, and he says that everything is extraordinary. He tears his trousers climbing down and curses in a tone he wrongly believes she cannot hear. From the first page he is the book's comic mirror of English male conceit.
The narrator does not yet know where she is, but she already feels how odd her own clothes and her small voice will seem. Her sleep has carried her somewhere that the magazine fight could never reach. The next surprise is not a place but a person, walking toward the pair across the grass.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
What prompted Corbett to imagine New Amazonia?
Right. “Corbett wrote it in anger after a magazine printed a protest signed by women who said they did not want the vote.”Not quite. “Corbett wrote it in anger after a magazine printed a protest signed by women who said they did not want the vote.”
What role does the State claim in citizens' lives?
Right. “The State acts as the Mother of every citizen.”Not quite. “The State acts as the Mother of every citizen.”
How does the narrator respond to New Amazonia's pursuit of health?
Right. “Corbett lets the reader admire the health of New Amazonia while feeling uneasy about what keeps it so.”Not quite. “Corbett lets the reader admire the health of New Amazonia while feeling uneasy about what keeps it so.”
Questions about New Amazonia
What is New Amazonia about?
A woman falls asleep over a magazine article against women's suffrage and wakes in Ireland in the year 2472. There women govern a healthy, orderly state, and she explores its laws, customs and beliefs with a comic English dandy.
When was New Amazonia written and by whom?
Mrs. George Corbett wrote it, and it appeared in 1889. She wrote it as a reply to a published protest against votes for women, and she wanted to picture a country where women ruled.
Who is Augustus Fitz-Musicus?
He is a conceited British dandy who wakes in an apple tree and claims descent from King George the Fourth. He serves as the book's comic foil, since he cannot accept that women could be stronger or wiser than men.
Is New Amazonia easy to read?
Yes in the sense that matters: the style is plain and lively, the chapters are short, and the book alternates between a comic story, guided tours and friendly debates, so each scene is easy to follow.
What is the main message of New Amazonia?
Corbett argues that women should vote, earn equal pay for equal work, have fair marriage laws, study medicine and share in government. She also imagines a state that cares for health, education and old age.
