Part One, Chapters One through Four Summary

Originally published in 1963 and set in England in the indeterminate future, The Wanting Seed, by Anthony Burgess, is a dark comedy about what could happen to the world if overpopulation were to spin out of control. Chapter One of Part One opens at the funeral of Beatrice-Joanna Foxe's small child, under the authority of two men from the Ministry of Agriculture's ominously-named Phosphorus Reclamation Department. The men are singing a popular song about a lovely boy named Fred that ends with the line, "he's my meat." A man named Dr. Acheson consoles Beatrice-Joanna that the little corpse will, at least, add valuable phosphorous pentoxide to the soil. The child, Roger, died of meningeal infection, and the doctor thinks the death for the best, considering the shortage of food for everyone, but Beatrice-Joanna is...