author

Zebina Forbush

Best known for a single unusual 1898 novel, this little-documented American writer imagined an Idaho co-operative commonwealth shaped by reform, equality, and social experiment. The result is a curious blend of fiction and political vision from the edge of utopian literature.

1 Audiobook

The Co-opolitan: A Story of the Co-operative Commonwealth of Idaho

The Co-opolitan: A Story of the Co-operative Commonwealth of Idaho

by Zebina Forbush

About the author

Very little firm biographical information appears to survive about this author, and the name Zebina Forbush may have been a pseudonym. Reference sources linked to the book identify Zebina Forbush with Frances H. Clarke, while also noting that the personal record is sparse.

What can be confirmed is the book that made the name memorable: The Co-opolitan: A Story of the Co-operative Commonwealth of Idaho, published in 1898 by Charles H. Kerr & Company. Project Gutenberg classifies it as late-19th-century American fiction, and genre reference sources describe it as a utopian novel centered on a communitarian settlement in Idaho.

That surviving work suggests a writer deeply interested in co-operation, social reform, and a future in which women are treated more equally with men. Even with so little known about the person behind the name, the novel has kept Zebina Forbush in view as a small but intriguing figure in American utopian writing.