Theodore Savage

Cicely Hamilton wrote this bleak vision of collapse in the shadow of the First World War, imagining a future conflict fought with aircraft and unnamed weapons that shatter civilization within days. Theodore Savage begins the story as a comfortable, unremarkable civil servant with a taste for good living. When war comes, it destroys not just cities but the whole machinery of modern life, and he is thrown into a brutal struggle for food and shelter among frightened, superstitious survivors. Hamilton is less interested in the mechanics of catastrophe than in how quickly knowledge, decency, and memory decay once comfort is stripped away. First published in 1922, it remains a striking early work of British apocalyptic fiction. This free PDF and EPUB edition includes the complete text.