Enoch Soames is a struggling poet in 1890s London. He is convinced that he is a genius, but his work is largely ignored by the literary establishment. Desperate for recognition, he makes a deal with the devil: in exchange for his soul, he will be allowed to travel forward in time to the year 1997, to see if his work has been remembered. Soames travels to the future and discovers that he is indeed remembered, but not in the way he had hoped. He is remembered as a joke, a figure of fun, and his work is largely forgotten. He returns to the past, his soul intact, but his dreams of literary immortality shattered.
By Max Beerbohm · First published 1919 · Genre: Fantasy, Satire, Historical Fiction