1923 - 1931. Inaugurated in 1923, with the initial contribution by British biologist J.B.S. Haldane, Daedalus, or Science and the Future, the popular To-day and To-morrow series of books began a decade-long tradition of describing the current status of science, technology and society, and forecasting a mostly progressive future for an educated, popular audience. But as the ‘progressive-era’ collided with the ‘age of anxiety’ and eventually the Great Depression, that future was now clouded with biological, technological, and/or sociological anxiety and controversy. This series of pocketbooks, described as pamphlets by London publisher Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner (and simultaneously published in New York by E.P. Dutton) explored these controversies, including the perennially popular subject of eugenics and its environmental rival, euthenics. The series eventually expanded through the early 1930s to just over a hundred volumes. An example series advertising copy is included as a picture with this entry, and summaries of fifteen of the volumes most closely related to eugenics are provided in separate, linked entries.

Most of the titles for the individual volumes evoked apropos classical Greek or Roman heroes and other mythological figures, such as Daedalus, or Lysistrata, or Woman’s Future and the Future Woman (A.M. Ludovici, 1925). Almost all volumes shared the common formula of describing the present situation (and sometimes the past that led to it), then forecasting the future for the next century or so. Thus many books are prophesying what is now ‘our’ present-day, at their maximum long-range forecast. This is one of the truly fascinating aspects of reading the books in the To-day and To-morrow series, like critiquing the futuristic accuracy (or fantasy) of classic science fiction with the actual state of these ‘future’ affairs, from our 21st Century vantage-point of 20/20 hindsight.

-Michael Kohlman

• Blacker, C.P. (1926). Birth control and the State. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Bowler, P.J. (2009). Science for all: the popularization of science in early twentieth-century Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Crookshanks, F.G. (1924, 1931). The mongol in our midst. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Haire, N. (1928). Hymen, or the future of marriage. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Haldane, J.B.S. (1923). Daedalus, or science and the future. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Jennings, H.S. (1925). Prometheus, or biology and the advancement of man. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

• Keith, A. (1931). Ethnos; or the problem of race. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Ludovici, A.M. (1925). Lysistrata, or womans future and the future woman. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

• Russell, B. (1924). Icarus, or the future of science. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company.

• Russell, D. (1925). Hypatia, or woman and knowledge. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Schiller, F.C.S. (1924). Tantalus, or the future of man. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

• Schraner, E. (2009). The to-day and to-morrow series. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 34(1), 107-115.