Deluge (novel)

Deluge

First commercial edition
Author	S. Fowler Wright
Language	English
Genre	Disaster
Publisher	Cosmopolitan Book Corporation
Publication date	1928
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hard & paperback)
Pages	305 pp
Followed by	Dawn

Deluge is a 1928 novel by S. Fowler Wright.

In the novel, a series of tremors creates a global flood that destroys all civilization save for a few areas of the English Midlands that remain above water. It follows Martin Webster, a lawyer who loses his wife and children. His companion, Claire Arlington, is an athlete and one of the few women to survive the flood. Their love affair is complicated when Helen, Martin's wife, turns out not to be dead after all. It is one of the earliest examples of post-apocalyptic science fiction, it is also classified as a scientific romance.

Wright used the metaphor of the flood and the aftermath to comment critically upon 1920s British society at the time. A film version made in Hollywood, very loosely based upon the book, but instead set in New York City was released in 1933. The film was well received in the United States and granted Wright considerable financial success.

Deluge was Wright's first bestseller both in the United States and in Wright's native United Kingdom, the success of the novel allowed Wright to pursue writing full-time ^[1]