Author: TUCKER, Horace.
Title: The New Arcadia. An Australian story.
Description: London, Melbourne &c, George Robertson 1894. Octavo publisher's brown cloth titled in black. Spine canted, minor signs of use. Floridly inscribed and signed by Tucker in 1897 to John Cuthbert Traill and "dedicated without permission to Mrs Traill." ¶ First edition. More romantic thriller - with murderous, will tampering, downright communist villains - than utopian polemic but a serious utopian novel none the less; unusual for the time in that it is not set in the future, a lost world or another planet. It's the story of a number of idealistic settlements, including Amazona, a women’s community; makes short work of the attempted communist society and ends with the triumph of co-operation. But not so much personal triumph, quite a bit of melodramatic death occurs before then. As one reviewer noted, "the author has an unpleasant knack of killing amiable people." All this is bound to a material if unsuccessful scheme. Tucker and Charles Strong promoted the resettlement of the unemployed in country areas and between 1892 and 1894 some 200 families were established in Tucker Village Settlements in Victoria. They failed for the usual reasons - lack of capital, a declining economy and mismanagement - but did see the Settlement of Lands Act (1893) enacted. Not in Hubin; it should be.

Keywords: literature fiction thrillers utopia c19th Australia association signed