Walter Besant’s "The Inner House" is a pioneering work of dystopian science fiction set in a future society where death has been conquered. In the city of the "Perfect State," a scientific breakthrough known as the Great Discovery has granted humanity immortality, eliminating all disease, aging, and want. Society is now rigidly controlled by a committee of scientists called the College of Physicians, who rule from the "Inner House" of the title. The populace lives in a state of placid, emotionless stagnation; art, music, ambition, and love are extinct, deemed unnecessary distractions from a perfectly ordered existence. The story is narrated by one of these immortal scientists, who is content with this sterile utopia. His worldview is challenged when a small group of rebels, led by a man and a woman, begin to experience flickers of memory from the old, passionate world. They secretly revive the forbidden concepts of romance, art, and individuality, seeing the eternal, unchanging present not as a blessing but as a prison for the human soul. The conflict escalates as these "awakened" individuals seek to reclaim their humanity, even if it means rediscovering suffering and mortality. Walter Besant creates a compelling philosophical conflict between the cold, safe rationality of the Physicians and the dangerous, beautiful, and unpredictable nature of human emotion. The novel poses a profound question: is a life without love, art, and death truly a life worth living for eternity?

Table of Contents:

• The Inner House. Part 1

• The Inner House. Part 2

• The Inner House. Part 3