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What Might Have Been is a 1907 British dystopian novel by Ernest Bramah (published in USA as The Secret of the League, 1909), which describes a successful overthrow of a democratically elected British Labour Party government by members of the upper classes, and depicts such an overthrow as being a positive and desirable outcome.
George Orwell credited the book with having given a considerably accurate prediction of the rise of Fascism, and also with reflecting "the mentality of the middle classes" and the brutal measures which members of these classes might condone should they feel threatened with a revolution — "even such a decent and kindly writer as Ernest Bramah", in Orwell's words.[1]