Ini: Ein Roman aus dem ein und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert

Voss, Julius von. Ini: Ein Roman aus dem ein und zwanzigsten Jahrhundert (Ini: A Novel from the Twenty-first Century). Berlin: Karl Friedrich Amelang, 1810. Project Gutenberg.[1] Available as a Google Book.[2] English translation by Dwight R. Decker. Northlake, IL: Vesper Press, 2021.

Hard-copy 2021 Decker translation includes a kind of afterword as introduction to the translated first act of Berlin im Jahre 1924. Lustspiel in Zwei Aufzüge (Berlin in the Year 1924. [A] Comedy in Two Acts). It also offers "Julius von Voss: A Biography" (pp. 160-165); a list of Decker's Sources; an Afterword looking at the background of Ini, including von Voss's sources and influences on his work; "Translation and Editorial Notes," most relevant for users of this Wiki comments on "Air Travel" in Ini— balloons pulled by tamed and trained eagles — and "Telecommunications," clarifying what the novel means by "telegraph": optical (semaphore, actually-existing in von Voss's Europe) and acoustic — von Voss's idea (pp. 171-73, 175). Also handled briefly in the back-matter: Ini as "A Literal Bildungsroman" (with explanations on the pseudo-science of phrenology, taken very seriously in Ini), and on preservation of a convict for 50 years and then revived in a "Resurrection" (pp. 175-77).

John J. Pierce notes that "Voss somehow overlooked the industrial revolution – there are no steamships or railways (which were already in development), nor any hint of electricity, as in Daniel Falk’s earlier satire Elektropolis (1802)" — and not very long after in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus (3 vols., starting 1818); there is, though, that "telegraph system [...] throughout all of Europe"; again, it's optical[3] — and semaphores are mentioned explicitly in the text — but as text just possibly with some electrical connection (Decker trans., First Book p. 15; see though p. 152: Decker's noting "semaphore telegraph" in Berlin in the Year 1924 and p. 175, as noted above). In any event, carrier pigeons seem more important (loc. cit. & passim). Chemistry is well developed (Second Book, p. 19, & passim).

Background: Benjamin Franklin's lightning experiment: 1752, Leyden jars: 1746, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther — Strum und Drang precursor to Romanticism): 1774/1787,[4] William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads (Romantic Movement underway): 1798, Alessandro Volta's description of the electric battery: 1800.[5] Experimental "electrochemical telegraph": 1804/1809;[6] Samuel Morse's "recording electric telegraph": 1837.  

So we have in Ini an interesting data point for what we might think "in the air" (as an old expression has it) but which did not interest an author trying to present a plausible future for his story; see also for the relationship of Romance or the Romantic or Sentimental with proto-SF or an early example.

Pierce notes that Voss did present such technological advances as

a telephone-like system, but without wires: voices can be transmitted over a system of pipes, with mechanical amplifiers at frequent intervals. Military dispatches can be shot in cannon balls by a series of cannons. Beyond such long-range communications, there are artificial eyeballs for the blind, and artificial ears for the deaf. There are music boxes that simulate human voices and even orchestras to bring concerts to every community […]." (Pierce p. 59; see above)

von Voss presents a generally positive future but an imperfect one, including warfare among competing empires "fought with weapons like airships that firebomb surface warships, naval artillery with incendiary shells, submarine troops that attack naval vessels with mines, and even poison gas and artificial plagues" (Pierce, pp. 59-60) — so see for the motif of future war.[7] For people concerned with the treatment of animals, von Voss's vision of human dominion over new species for human use — eagles, whales, and polar bears impressively — can be disturbing, especially the casualness of cruel treatment to ensure the obedience of whales (Fourth Book, Decker p. 125): an argument for machines' replacing non-human animals to power transport.

A cliché of theatre history in the mid-20th century was that the ("Romantic") period from the 18th into the 19th century may not have been a great age for drama but it was for ingenious production effects. In his travels in Third Book, the book's hero sees impressive theatrical SpFX in both Paris (Decker pp 104-05) and London (p. 113), involving stage machinery. There's also mechanized music, such as "Two silver kettle drums as large as moderate-sized houses [...] played with oaken beans driven by machines," and huge horns, "attached to a large bellows" (pp. 52-53).

RDE, Initial Compiler, with thanks to J.J. Pierce, 14May20, 26May20, 12-14/23Sep21