Allan Stern, consulting engineer, and Beatrice Kendrick, stenographer, now king and queen of the whole wide world domain (as they feared), sat together by a little blaze of punky wood fragments that flickered on the eroded floor.

“Where did you even find this book?”

I imagine that’s a question that’s popped into your brain, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to explicate. See, there’s this mishmash of apps that I like to use while I drive that have the potential of providing me with enough classic, out-of-copyright audiobooks to last me until I’m way past old and grey (and I’m not even talking about Librivox). The two I used for this particular selection are the Gutenberg Project and the Librera Reader app (links provided).

Sure, I love grabbing some books-on-CD from the library or audio books on the Libby app, and I’ve purchased digital versions from both Audible and Christianaudio.com as well, but sometimes I don’t want to go to the trouble (or the expense). Plus, they don’t always have what I want. So instead, I sometimes manipulate my way into an almost-the-same feel with a PDF and a text-to-speech app. The technology is improving, so it’s not like I’m stuck listening to Microsoft Sam.

Stylistically, this 110-year-old novel flows incredibly well, nothing debilitated by the wordiness that characterized much of that time period’s fiction. In fact, its pace and economy of words (relative to the drivel of its day, of course) reminded me of H. Rider Haggard whose storytelling abilities for the era were (in my opinion) second to none.

Like Haggard, George Allen England writes with a flare that says, “Here’s the story, now let’s watch it play out…come what may.” In The Last New Yorkers, that story entails Beatrice the stenographer and Allan Stern awakening from a sleep in their office in what was once a New York skyrise, only, a full 1,000 years have passed since they fell asleep, and they two now are the only remaining humans on the planet. What follows is part Time Machine by Jules Verne and part Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Beatrice and Stern must search for fresh water, make their own fire, hunt their own food, and otherwise survive, all in the crumbled streets of New York City.

This book is a product of its time, to be sure, for through all the processes of survival, Stern’s greatest kindness and proof of manhood is to let Beatrice remain in their fifth-floor suite to busy herself with the housekeeping. He finds furs in an old clothing shop for her to sew. He makes for her a broom of straw so she can sweep the apartment out. He finds dishes so she can make the place feel homey. And he’s even joyfully surprised at her ability to whip up a real-life casserole from the glass-stored foodstuffs that he found within the rubble. How fitting that in a world of but two humans, the woman still knows her place!

Another striking series of early 20th-century thought processes comes during the later scenes when the couple witnesses a war between two hordes of bluish, ape-like creatures in the woods below. Stern’s estimation that these creatures are the descendants of “blacks” (and therefore up the evolutionary chain?!) starts him on a whirlwind of racially insensitive comments that grate one’s ears and eyes. At one point, for example, he says: “These creatures here, if they’re descended from the blacks, must have some story, some tradition of the white man. Of his mastery, his power! We’ll use it now, by Heaven, as it never yet was used!” Yes, when all humanity is wiped out and nothing but blue-tinged apes remain, still they will remember the dominance of the Whites, and still they will cower beneath his supremacy. Still they must view these Whites as gods!

While reading this book, I’m also reading two other period pieces: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass himself and The Road by Jack London. It’s no stretch to say that the disgustingly candid racism of Whites against Blacks back then was at its worst. The race-baiting of these modern times is sheer nonsense in comparison, and I hope people can see it.

But I do wonder about how the African American population of today handles books such as these by London and England. I’m sickened by the scenes and by the flippant use of the N-word. Are there any Black bloggers reviewing these things, or do most simply shun them?

Are stories like this best left unread? Best cleaned up and reprinted? Best preserved in their insensitive originality?

I believe it would be a mistake to erase the past, to edit it or censor it. At the same time, it oughtn’t be celebrated. So, as much as I enjoyed this story, I guess I’m doing my part by bringing this aspect of the tale to light.

I’ll probably lock George Allen England away as a writer I wouldn’t mind reading again (as racist and socialist as he might be), but he’ll not be my next read. I really enjoyed the post-apocalyptic flair of this novel and its insight into the thinking of early 20th century science-fiction, but the underlying philosophies were a bit hard to bear.

©2021 E.T.

Read More Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels:

• The Last New Yorkers by George Allen England (1911)
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
• The Last Ship by William Brinkley (1988)
• Minority Report and Other Stories by Philip K. Dick (2004)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
• The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins (2008)
• Son of Heaven (series) by David Wingrove (2011)
• Contamination (series) by T.W. Piperbrook (2013)
• Yellowstone (series) by Bobby Akart (2018)
• The Giver by Lois Lowry, adapted by P. Craig Russell (2019)
• Fairy Godparents: Raising a Fairy Child by Indahari Setyo (2020)