It’s a private moment, which explains why Quin’s ministers are so surprised to discover that their leader is, in the parlance of our times, nothing but a troll doing it for “teh lulz.”

Early in the novel, he laughs long and loud while remembering the words of a Nicaraguan refugee who later commits suicide, mocking the man’s sincere belief in a leader that wants to do right by his people. Some tourists and even residents of the city today might find themselves in agreement that of Chesterton’s many speculations regarding London’s future, this one was especially prescient.īy dividing London into commonwealths, Quin pits the neighborhoods against each other for his own amusement this is short-sightedness on his part, but it’s also sheer carelessness.

London becomes a theme park dedicated to the celebration of a glorious past which never truly existed outside books of myth and verse. He establishes each neighborhood of London as its own fief or commonwealth: halberds are back, and so are “the full richness of medieval garments,” which means men in tights deciding if mustard is really their color. What he produced is The Napoleon of Notting Hill, a satire of the future in which an owlish, unpleasant little man named Auberon Quin randomly wins England’s curious leadership lottery, then immediately uses his new position upon the throne to resurrect the romantic tradition of chivalric heraldry and pageantry. Interested in the futures of his country, his career, and his marriage, not necessarily in that order, Chesterton asked for twenty pounds in advance-which he gave to his wife. In his imagined future, all prospective monarchs would be chosen “like a juryman upon an official rotation list.” (Presumably, said rotation list contained no once or future queens.) Set in 1984, the book would focus not on the future of science or technology, but the future of power, society, and authority. Chesterton spent his last ten shillings on a shave and a fortifying lunch that included a bottle of wine, then pitched his editor on a novel about the future of London in which nothing of any consequence will have changed in eighty years-except for how England comes by its kings. According to Chesterton scholar Dale Ahlquist’s lecture on the subject, in 1904, G.

Century: age of ashes armor