A quasi-science fiction book called The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story (1901) was co-written by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford. Its themes of corruption and the impact of the 20th century on the British nobility were foreseen because it was written before to the First World War. William Heinemann published it initially in London, and McClure, Phillips and Company later that same year published it in New York. The "fourth dimension" metaphor is used in the book to explain how a traditional generation of individuals with values of interdependence has been replaced by a more contemporary generation that values expediency and uses political power callously to overthrow the status quo. The story's narrator, an aspiring writer, experiences a similar transformation in his own life but ends up feeling as though he has lost everything.