Book excerpt: A A A Written in 1935 but never published until now, this novel depicts a world ruled by women some 4,000 years into the future. Men live alone and rear boys in a cheerful atmosphere of sports, physical labor, and healthy sexuality, but without the consciousness of anxiety or knowledge of history claimed by women. The plot of the novel described by Choice as "a forgotten masterpiece", turns on the desire of one woman to teach her son about the past. Risking their lives, she tells the story of the rise of fascism and the subsequent world transformation as life-loving women took over from death-lovign men. "Burdekin's novel is one of the few serious role-reversal utopias we have. I read it in one sitting." - Joanna Russ , author of The Female Man