[UTOPIAN THOUGHT] TANGENT, Patrick Quinn [pseud. George Hamilton Phelps]

The New Columbia; or, The Re-United States [Inscribed]

Findlay, OH: New Columbia Publishing Co., 1909. First Edition. Octavo (20cm); light grey pictorial cloth stamped in dark green and orange; vii,[3],99,[1],[1](ad)pp. Inscribed by the author on the front pastedown: "Otto D. Donnell / I want you to read the / last chapter and ask / your good wife to read the / first. I want to make her / laugh and [next two lines illegible] / With compliments of the author / Pat Q. Tangent." Mild wear to spine ends, two small stains to board edges, with four small bruises to spine panel, resulting in minor loss to cloth and some board exposure; Good to Very Good.

Utopian work which begins with the deportation from the United States and Canada to the "Old World" all precious metals and forms of currency, as well as "all persons who are unwilling to do, with their hands or brain, their fair share of all the service, of every sort and description, necessary to produce and distribute the necessaries and comforts of life, and beautify, improve and adorn this North American continent..." This copy with an interesting inscription to Donnell, the second generation head of the Findlay headquartered Ohio Oil Company (known today as Marathon Petroleum). The unhinged nature of the work, the author's public break with reality, along with the nearly illegible and cryptic nature of the inscription raises speculation as to whether the book was ever presented to the recipient, or whether their relationship, too, may have been fantasized. NEGLEY 920; SARGENT, p. 75.

Price: $275.00

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