John Ames Mitchell 48 min read

A Persian expedition of the year 2951 rediscovers the ruins of vanished Mehrika and its extinct people, piecing together the strange domestic life of the foolish nation that once dwelt there.

John Ames Mitchell's 1889 novel is a witty, satirical post-apocalyptic tale. Sharp, ironic, richly illustrated. Read it for a clever period satire of America, seen through the eyes of future Persian archaeologists sifting the rubble of a dead United States, a droll warning to a 'foolish people.'

In its time

Published in 1889, during the 1880s, lost races and dying earths.

Reading it

48 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

F. W. Read