In The Fixed Period, Trollope imagines the future republic of Britannula, where a reforming president, John Neverbend, enacts a law mandating compulsory retirement at sixty-seven and a year of sequestration before humane death at sixty-eight. Narrated by Neverbend in an earnest, self-justifying voice, the novel blends political debate, parliamentary procedure, and domestic comedy into a coolly ironical dystopia set in 1980. Its satire probes utilitarian calculations, the rhetoric of progress, colonial self-confidence, and the sentimental claims of friendship, culminating in a dramatic imperial intervention that tests the limits of technocratic governance and humane intention. Written late in Anthony Trollope's career, the book extends the concerns of a novelist famed for Barsetshire and parliamentary fiction into speculative terrain. A veteran civil servant and indefatigable traveler, Trollope knew colonial societies firsthand and observed debates on scientific administration, aging, and euthanasia; those experiences and his skepticism toward reductive utilitarianism shape the novel's tonal mix of sympathy and scrutiny. Recommended to readers of Swift and Butler as well as early science fiction, The Fixed Period offers a concise, unsettling meditation on progress and pity, ideal for courses in Victorian studies, bioethics, political thought, and utopian-dystopian literature.
Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable-distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.
