The Diamond Age

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, first published in 1995 by Bantam Books as a Bantam Spectra hardcover. Its subtitle names the device the plot turns on: a young lady's illustrated primer.

The book is set in a twenty-second century in which nanotechnology has transformed daily life, and it deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity and the nature of artificial intelligence. In 1996 it won both the Hugo and Locus Awards and was shortlisted for the Nebula and other prizes, which reflects how broadly it was received across the science fiction readership.

The plot rests on an interactive book. An engineer designs a device intended to raise a girl who can think for herself, and the copy of it that matters reaches a child of the poor underclass rather than the daughter it was built for, so the novel's social argument is carried by that misdelivery. Stephenson wrote it as a coming-of-age story. The primer teaches by conversation, and the child it eventually reaches is named Nell, so the novel's argument about education is dramatised rather than stated.