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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-author"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Hamilton, Cicely </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author, Theatre.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=hamilton_cicely'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=hamilton_cicely'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=hamilton_cicely'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Checklist" onclick="window.location.hash='chklst'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Alpha" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=hamilton_cicely&abc'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Chron" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=hamilton_cicely'" ></span> </div> <p>Pseudonym under which UK playwright, actor, <a href="/entry/feminism">Feminist</a> and author Mary Cicely Hammill (1872-1952) published all her adult work, though her children's fiction, including some stories for the <b>Sexton Blake</b> series, was written as by Scott Rae and by Max Hamilton. Her best-known plays are eloquently suffragist; they include <i>How the Vote Was Won</i> (<b>1908</b> chap; first performed 1909) with Christopher St John (1871-1960) (who had decades previously abandoned her birth name Christabel Marshall), in which the outcome predicted by the title is achieved when those women without means go on strike.</p> <p>Hamilton is one of the first – and among the darkest – of those UK sf novelists whose vision of things was shaped by <a href="/entry/world_war_one">World War One</a>, which they saw as foretelling the end of civilization; she herself served throughout the war, either in hospital work or with Concerts at the Front. Her sf novel, <i>Theodore Savage: A Story of the Past or the Future</i> (<b>1922</b>; rev vt <i>Lest Ye Die</i> <b>1928</b>), bitterly depicts a <a href="/entry/future_war">Future War</a> which destroys <a href="/entry/london">London</a> and escalates towards a full-scale <a href="/entry/holocaust">Holocaust</a>, in whose aftermath the people of the UK, driven out of the remaining cities, revert to superstitious barbarism; the revised version presents a more "savage" Theodore Savage, whose increased coldness to the woman he loves emphasizes the dispassionate long view characteristic of the <a href="/entry/scientific_romance">Scientific Romance</a>, making some reference to the use of gas in warfare, and eventually comparing the ruins of previous civilizations with the ruins created in his own time (see <a href="/entry/ruins_and_futurity">Ruins and Futurity</a>), and concluding that human history on the planet is cyclical. Savage himself lives to a great age in a small village full of savages who think of pre-collapse artefacts as obscene, a trope typical of many subsequent <a href="/entry/ruined_earth">Ruined Earth</a> novels.</p> <p>Hamilton's <a href="/entry/feminism">Feminism</a> was cogent and ably directed to the correction of multifarious legal oppressions women suffered under; twenty-first century references to Hamilton tend to focus on her feminism and her playwriting, but (deficiently) fail to mention her sf. [JC/SFN]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/end_of_the_world">End of the World</a>; <a href="/entry/history_in_sf">History in SF</a>.</p> <h3 id="chklst">Mary Cicely Hammill</h3> <p><b>born</b> London: 15 June 1872</p> <p><b>died</b> London: 5 December 1952</p> <p><b>works</b></p> <p><input type="button" value="Alphabetical" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=hamilton_cicely&abc'"> <input type="button" value="Chronological" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=hamilton_cicely'"></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=How+the+Vote+Was+Won&field-author=Hamilton+Cicely" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">How the Vote Was Won</a></em> (London: Women Writers' Suffrage League, <b>1908</b>) with Christabel Marshall as Christopher St John [play: chap: first performed 13 April 1909 Kingsway Theatre, London: illus/C Hedley Charlton: pb/] <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=How+the+Vote+Was+Won&field-author=Hamilton+Cicely" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">How the Vote Was Won</a></em> (London: Womens' Press, <b>1909</b>) with Christabel Marshall as Christopher St John [play: chap: full text of the above: pb/]</li> </ul></li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Theodore+Savage+A+Story+of+the+Past+or+the+Future&field-author=Hamilton+Cicely" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Theodore Savage: A Story of the Past or the Future</a></em> (London: Leonard Parsons, <b>1922</b>) [hb/Cooper] <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Lest+Ye+Die&field-author=Hamilton+Cicely" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Lest Ye Die</a></em> (London: Jonathan Cape, <b>1928</b>) [rev vt of the above: hb/E J I A]</li> </ul></li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Little+Arthur+History+of+the+Twentieth+Century&field-author=Hamilton+Cicely" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Little Arthur's History of the Twentieth Century</a></em> (London: J M Dent and Sons, <b>1933</b>) [hb/John Farleigh]</li> </ul> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?128665">Internet Speculative Fiction Database</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/47185">Project Gutenberg</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hamilton_cicely' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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