Book contents
- Changing the Climate at the Fin de Siècle
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Changing the Climate at the Fin de Siècle
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1The Changing Climate of the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 2Straightening the Planet
- Chapter 3Hothousing the World
- Chapter 4Digging the Future
- Chapter 5Conquering the Sky
- Chapter 6Artificialising the Atmosphere
- Chapter 7Controlling the Climate of Fiction
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
- Cambridge Studies In Nineteenth-Century Literature And Culture
Chapter 5 - Conquering the Sky
Mary Bradley Lane and Rokeya Hossain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 July 2026
Book contents
- Changing the Climate at the Fin de Siècle
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Changing the Climate at the Fin de Siècle
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1The Changing Climate of the Nineteenth Century
- Chapter 2Straightening the Planet
- Chapter 3Hothousing the World
- Chapter 4Digging the Future
- Chapter 5Conquering the Sky
- Chapter 6Artificialising the Atmosphere
- Chapter 7Controlling the Climate of Fiction
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
- Cambridge Studies In Nineteenth-Century Literature And Culture
Summary
This chapter concentrates on two authors, two contexts, and two works: US schoolteacher Mary Bradley Lane’s Mizora (1881) and British-Indian author Rokeya Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream” (1905). Extrapolating the techno-social emergence of female ballooning in the nineteenth-century United States and India, the chapter argues that the two feminist utopias intersect social and environmental freedom. Lane employs the underground setting popularised by Bulwer-Lytton to house a techno-feminist civilization controlling the climate at will, while Hossain describes the diffuse, oneiric terrain of Ladyland in which climate control supports a garden world. Comparing the two different feminist utopias and contexts, both marked by feminist aviation and atmospheric interventions, the chapters showcase the socio-political character of anthropogenic climate change: Hossain’s climate utopia is caring, inclusive, and decolonial, whereas Lane’s is cynical, exclusive, and imperialist.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Changing the Climate at the Fin de SiècleScience, Fiction, and the Anthropocene, pp. 93 - 108Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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