When war breaks out in Europe -- modern, aerial war whose tactics include displacing entire populations -- British civilization collapses overnight. The ironically named Theodore Savage, an educated and idle civil servant, must learn to survive by his wits in a new Britain... one where science and technology swiftly come to be regarded with superstitious awe and terror.
The book -- by a women's rights activist often remembered today for her polemical plays, tracts and treatises -- was first published in 1922.