In the year 2889 — Story, Setting & Ideas

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In Category - Time Travel Speculative Futures

Authors: Verne, Jules, 1828-1905, Verne, Michel, 1861-1925 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2006 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Short stories Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 8,729

Reading time 38 min

Text sections 1

This digital edition of In the year 2889 — Story, Setting & Ideas is described by source-level measurements including 8,729 words, 38 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 15.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #19362

This 1889 story, attributed to Jules Verne but likely written by his son Michel, depicts a 29th-century world of pneumatic tubes, aerial coaches, and accumulators. The narrative follows media mogul Fritz Napoleon Smith as he fields inventors, revealing a future where marvels are mundane and progress is measured by commercial exploitation.

Read the complete public-domain text at its original source.

Read on Project Gutenberg

The story opens with a declaration that the people of the twenty-ninth century “live continually in fairyland,” yet are indifferent to marvels. This framing immediately establishes a tone of ironic contrast between past and future, as the narrator catalogs wonders: streets 300 feet wide, houses 1000 feet high, and pneumatic tubes that carry travelers at 1000 miles an hour. The text attributes these advances to a belated discovery in 2792 by Oswald Nier, who unlocked the direct reproduction of forces from one another. This specific historical marker—placing the breakthrough only a century before the story’s present—gives the future a tangible, almost recent origin.

A Future Built on Patents and Accumulators

The protagonist, Fritz Napoleon Smith, is not a scientist or explorer but a media magnate who controls the Earth Chronicle. His daily routine includes a visit to his accumulator works at Niagara Falls, where he has leased the falls to collect and sell energy. This detail ties the speculative technology directly to a real-world landmark, grounding the future in a recognizable geography. Smith’s business model—leasing natural forces and reselling their energy—reflects a world where invention is subordinated to commerce. The text notes that “for ages the energy developed by the falls went unutilized” until Smith applied Jackson’s invention, implying that progress depends on entrepreneurial capture rather than pure discovery.

The Audience of Visionaries and Quacks

Smith grants daily audiences to inventors, and the excerpts describe four proposals. The first is a chemist who claims he will reduce the remaining three elementary bodies to one, then manufacture anything—even flesh and blood. Smith advances him $100,000 and hires him for the Earth Chronicle laboratory. The second proposes moving an entire city on rails to the seaside; Smith buys a half-interest. The third wants to melt the polar ice caps by redirecting surplus heat; Smith asks for plans. The fourth announces a solution to a “weighty scientific problem.” These proposals mix the plausible (city relocation) with the fantastical (manufacturing humans), and Smith’s responses are uniformly commercial: he funds, invests, or defers. The story treats invention as a portfolio, not a quest for truth.

The Catalog Subject vs. The Text’s Emphasis

The catalog lists “Science fiction” and “Short stories” as subjects, but the excerpts reveal a narrative more concerned with media and economics than with technological wonder. The story’s speculative elements—aerial coaches, color-photography replacing painting, accumulators—are presented as backdrops for Smith’s decision-making. The narrator’s tone is often wry: a physician who claims a cure for nasal catarrh is dismissed as an “impracticable.” The story’s structure, following Smith through a day of appointments, resembles a business chronicle rather than an adventure. Readers expecting a futuristic travelogue will find instead a satire of innovation culture, where the most radical ideas are evaluated for profit potential.

The excerpts offer a narrow window into the story’s full scope—only the opening and a portion of Smith’s day are included. The narrative may continue with other episodes or a broader plot, but the available text suggests a consistent focus on the intersection of technology and commerce. Readers should note that the story’s attribution is uncertain; the redactor’s note indicates it is “chiefly if not entirely the work of Jules’ son, Michel Verne.” This context may inform how one reads the story’s attitude toward progress and entrepreneurship.

Reading this 2889 tale, I remembered how our own century's wonders turned ordinary—pneumatic tubes became my grandparents' apartment intercom, humdrum as a doorknob. A Tramp Abroad — A Reader’s Guide stirred that same quiet ache, watching Twain marvel at Alps that were just mountains to the locals. Progress softens everything into furniture.