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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
You will enjoy this if you like gothic tales, early science fiction, and bold talk about love, art, and machines. It suits readers who relish a sharp-tongued inventor and the question of what makes a person real.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Belief gives an invention its life
- Ewald cannot reconcile beauty and character
- Edison offers an ideal in return
- Hadaly makes the impossible seem possible
- The artificial garden carries a loss
- A friend's ruin drives Edison's invention
- Hadaly exceeds the machinery explaining her
- Alicia helps create her secret double
- The ideal leaves love in question
Who’s who
- Thomas Alva EdisonThe Wizard of Menlo Park, a skeptical inventor who builds an android to cure a friend's despair.
- Lord EwaldA young English peer, handsome and sorrowful, who is ready to die for a love he cannot respect.
- Alicia ClaryA beautiful singer whose body matches the Venus Victrix and whose mind is practical, vain, and shallow.
- HadalyA veiled android in silver armor, built to take Alicia's form and give it a nobler voice.
- SowanaA sleeping woman who speaks to Edison through a ring and telephone and helps in the work.
- Edward AndersonEdison's friend, a happy husband ruined by a dancer, whose fate drives the plan.
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Tomorrow's Eve
by Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam · 1886
Edison offers a despairing lord a mechanical copy of the woman he loves, built in twenty-one days.
Challenging5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Seek the eternal in transient things”
In short
What would you do if the woman you love had a perfect face and an empty mind? Lord Ewald, a young English peer, faces that question in a laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, on an autumn evening.
Tomorrow's Eve at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 50 min4 h 40 min fast, 7 h slow
- Length
- 83,700 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1886by Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Edison alone at dusk dreams of lost sounds
The book opens on an evening in Menlo Park. Thomas Alva Edison sits alone in his pavilion laboratory with a cigar, after sending his five assistants home.
He talks to himself, half joking and half grieving. He regrets that he was born so late. If his phonograph had existed in Eden, he says, it could have caught the first human words. Then he argues himself out of the sorrow. A sound needs a listener who believes in it, and the awe of the ancients is gone. This is the first sign of the book's main thought, that a thing is real only as far as a mind gives it life.
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Details
- First published
- 1886
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6 h 40 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Auguste de. Tomorrow's Eve. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/tomorrows-eve.
Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, A. de. (2026). Tomorrow's Eve. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tomorrows-eve (Original work published 1886)
Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Auguste de. Tomorrow's Eve. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tomorrows-eve.
@book{villiersdelisleadam2026tomorrows,
author = {Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Auguste de},
title = {Tomorrow's Eve},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tomorrows-eve},
note = {First published 1886}
}
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What is Tomorrow's Eve about?
A despairing English lord, in love with a beautiful but shallow singer, visits Thomas Edison to say goodbye. Edison builds an android named Hadaly with the singer's looks and a loftier voice, and the story weighs illusion against reality.
Who is Hadaly?
Hadaly is Edison's veiled android, built in silver armor with gold phonograph lungs. She is shaped to take the body of Alicia Clary while speaking lines written for an ideal woman, and her name means ideal in an Oriental tongue.
Is the Edison in the book the real Edison?
Not quite. A note to the reader explains that the hero is the legendary Wizard of Menlo Park, not the working engineer. The author borrows the public image, the way Goethe used the legend of Faust.
The author
Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
1838–1889 · French Symbolist writer
French writer.
“Seek the eternal in transient things”
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