'The Fixed Period' Summary

It was first published in six instalments in Blackwood's Magazine in 1881–82 and in book form in 1882. In the same year there also appeared US and Tauchnitz editions of the novel. There were no further editions until 1981. The Fixed Period is Trollope's only piece of dystopian writing.

Trollope was influenced in writing the book by The Old Law, a 17th-century tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, and Philip Massinger which he had read, and commented upon, in 1876. The Fixed Period is set in the year 1980 in the Republic of Britannula, a fictional island in the vicinity of New Zealand, and deals with euthanasia as a radical solution to the problem of the aged. The novel takes the form of a personal account written by the President of Britannula about the island's recent history. It has frequently been remarked that when the book came out Trollope himself had reached the age of 67, the exact age at which all Britannulans are obliged by law to retire from their worldly affairs and begin a year of preparation for death.