A dystopian novel completed in 1921, written in response to the author's personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond and work in the Tyne shipyards at nearby Wallsend during the First World War. It was at Tyneside that he observed the rationalization of labour on a large scale. The book influenced Orwell's 1984 and possibly Huxley's Brave new world.