Anno Domini 2000 : or, Woman’s destiny

/ by Sir Julius Vogel, K.C.M.G. London : Hutchinson and Co., 1890. “Third and cheaper edition” (i.e. the first “yellow back” edition). Octavo (190 x 125 mm), publisher’s pictorial papered boards and spine (boards rubbed and lightly marked, somewhat edge-worn; spine sunned and softened at ends; short splits at head and foot of joints); pp. viii, 331, [4 publisher’s advertisements]; spotting to edges, front and rear hinges cracked, endpapers with offsetting, otherwise internally very good and contents clean throughout.

The only work of fiction by the distinguished, liberal-minded New Zealand statesman Sir Julius Vogel (1835-1899), Anno Domini 2000 : or, Woman’s destiny is a remarkably prescient one for its time. It is a utopian novel set in a world of the future in which women have largely achieved social equality and political suffrage, and occupy positions of authority. The story follows the fortunes of its female protagonist, young New Zealand woman Hilda Fitzherbert, Undersecretary for Home Affairs in the Imperial Federation (an imagined version of the British Empire in the year 2000); her nemesis is the Australian arch-villain, Sir Reginald Paramatta. The book is regarded as the first science fiction novel by a New Zealand writer. The annual Sir Julius Vogel Awards for New Zealand speculative fiction are named in the author’s honour.

Throughout his political career, Vogel worked for reconciliation with the Māori people, and he also championed women’s rights: New Zealand’s steady movement towards universal suffrage for women, which became a reality in September 1893, was due in no small measure to Vogel’s efforts across three decades in politics, culminating in his introduction of the first women’s suffrage Bill to Parliament in 1887; even further impetus was provided by the publication of Anno Domini 2000 : or, Woman’s destiny, which appeared in both a colonial issue and a (slightly later) British issue in 1889. New Zealand was the first nation in the world to grant voting rights to women.

Born into London Jewish family, Vogel studied chemistry and metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines before emigrating to Victoria, Australia in 1852 – at the height of the gold rush – where he worked as an editor on several goldfields newspapers. He moved to New Zealand in 1861, and gained work as a journalist at the Otago Witness. In November that year he founded the Otago Daily Times. From 1862 he was involved in provincial politics; he served as premier of New Zealand in 1873-5 (during which time he received a knighthood) and again in 1876. He then acted as agent-general for New Zealand in London from 1876 until 1881. In 1884 he was once again elected as a representative in the New Zealand government. After retiring from politics in 1887 he returned to England and resumed his role as agent-general for New Zealand.

In 1867 Vogel had married Mary “Polly” Clayton, daughter of Dunedin architect William Henry Clayton. They had three sons and one daughter.