A Crystal Age
by W. H. Hudson 1841–1922
The book, and the century it came out of.
A man falls, and wakes in a world thousands of years hence where the family is the state, the house is the world, war is forgotten and the passion that drove his own century has been bred out. Hudson was a naturalist born on the Argentine pampas who came to England at thirty-three and lived in poverty; this 1887 romance sold badly and was rediscovered by writers — the paradise in it is genuinely alien, and the narrator cannot live in it. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Duncanson, Cole and Brown among them.
Romances of the future, however fantastic they may be, have for most of us a perennial if mild interest, since they are born of a very common feeling—a sense of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things, combined with a vague faith in or hope of a better one to come.
A Crystal Age, by W. H. Hudson, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Science Fiction
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 184 pages
- Reading time
- about 4 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501969469
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
A Crystal Age, first published 1887, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Science Fiction shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501969469, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of A Crystal Age?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. W. H. Hudson's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 184 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
