Hovenden, Robert
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
UK author, most probably Robert Meyrick Hovenden (circa 1809-1885), who published various books 1844-1876. Of sf interest is an unfictionalized Future History, A Tract of Future Times [for subtitle see Checklist] (1851), told as though written after 1950 and giving an accounting of the previous era, concentrating on the last fifty years of the nineteenth century, espousing a kind of benevolently anarchic Utopia based on sedulous obedience to the dictates of that version of the Christian Religion in which loving-kindness to others is given more than lip service. An earlier book, Crime and Punishment; Or, the Question of How We Treat our Criminals? Practically Considered (1849), argues the inefficacy of criminalization and punishment, arguments more fully explored in the later volume; however couched, these arguments received short shrift. [JC/SH]
Robert Meyrick Hovenden
born Hemingford Grey, Hampshire: circa 1809
died Bath, Somerset: 30 October 1885
[Another but less likely possibility for this author is the wholesale perfumer Robert Hovenden (born Shoreditch, London: 9 May 1830; died Thanet, Kent: 23 November 1908), whose confirmed publications deal with genealogy.]
works
- Crime and Punishment; Or, the Question of How We Treat our Criminals? Practically Considered (London: Charles Gilpin, 1849) [nonfiction: binding unknown/]
- A Tract of Future Times, Or the Reflections of Posterity on the Excitement, Hypocrisy, and Idolatry of the Nineteenth Century (London: Charles Gilpin, 1851) [binding unknown/]
links
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