A Crystal Age.
London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887. First edition, first printing. Full crushed black morocco, spine panels and inner dentelles decoratively gilt, teg, marbled endpapers, with original publisher's cloth binding and floral patterned front endpaper bound in, housed in custom marbled slipcase. Octavo. 287, [1], 30p. ads, [2]. 7.5" x 5.5" 1" chip fore edge of rebacked original front endpaper, title page detached and laid in, else near fine in very good slipcase with some repair to seams. Item #157230
SCI-FI PUBLISHED ANONYMOUSLY TO MAINTAIN HIS REPUTATION
Although authors commonly published anonymously throughout the nineteenth century, William Henry Hudson maintained his anonymity in A Crystal Age for different reasons. Reeling from a poorly received first novel, Hudson was a budding Argentinian naturalist and ornithologist (he went on to discover two Patagonian bird species) and worried about tarnishing his fledgling career if he did not distance himself from fiction. So, A Crystal Age entered the world unattributed as a groundbreaking science fiction work where narrator Smith mysteriously awakens in a land that has no politics, no cities, and no romance. Anti-capitalist and pro-communal living, Hudson took a startling pastoral approach to the future rather than the technological veneration popular among his peers, paving the path for H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon.
Beautifully bound in full black crushed morocco with a custom marbled slipcase, this first edition, first printing has the original cloth spine and covers backed and bound in the rear.
[Wilson, 2; Bleiler, p. 154.].
Price: $1,000.00