The Mudfog Papers (The Mudfog and Other Sketches) Charles Dickens
Before the contemporary world of science fiction brought us robot theme parks, and even before Victorian futurism breathed life into the steampunk world of clockwork there was Mudfog. Published in the pages of Boz throughout the 1830s, Dickens brought to life the The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything, a country town association with a line in the most marvellous and absurd inventions. A pocket railway; a city of automatons; the "Fitfordogmeataurious" one-eyed horse; a snuffbox-sized pickpocketing machine; it's all here in Mudfog.