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Lesley Durrell Ljungdahl Lesley Durrell Ljungdahl i(A9579 works by)
Gender: Female
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1 y separately published work icon Catherine Helen Spence : From a Colonist of 1839 to 'the Grand old Woman of Australia' Lesley Durrell Ljungdahl , 1992 Z970208 1992 single work thesis
2 10 y separately published work icon A Week in the Future Catherine Helen Spence , Sydney : Hale and Iremonger , 1987 Z824264 1889 single work novel science fiction

'Emily Bethal is dying. The doctors give her two years at best. It will be two years of increasing pain and dependence. It is probably the dependence that Emily fears the most. She is independent, spirited and wilful. She has strong opinions and she knows the way the world works ... but she also knows how it should work. Is the deal worth it? Yes, she will avoid the two years of suffering and has traded it for for one week of living in the future. And the future she will see? The bright shiny wonderful and miraculous world of 1988. Yes 100 years into her own future takes her back to our recent past. See the wonders that Emily sees as she experiences a world that she just knows must exist for the betterment of all man ... and womankind.'

Source: 2010 Chimaera edition

1 A Week in the Future: Prologue Lesley Durrell Ljungdahl , 1987 single work criticism
— Appears in: A Week in the Future 1987; (p. 7-17)
Ljungdahl explores the extent to which this novel of ideas draws on Clapperton's Scientific Melioration. She highlights the social changes outlined in A Week in the Future, but notes that the optimistic solutions Spence finds for society's problems are only superficially dealt with.
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