The Fixed Period (1882) is a satirical dystopian novel by Anthony Trollope. He was influenced in writing the book by The Old Law, a 17th-century tragicomedy written by Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, and Philip Massinger which he had read, and commented upon, in 1876. The Fixed Period is set in the year 1980 in the Republic of Britannula, a fictional island in the vicinity of New Zealand, and deals with euthanasia as a radical solution to the problem of the aged.