DONNELLY, Ignatius

Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel

Chicago: R.S. Peale and Company, 1887. Stated "Eleventh Edition." Inscribed on front endpaper from William Hosea Ballou to Miss Mary Lou Dearing, dated 1889 (see note); also with a laid-in gravure portrait of Donnelly, autographed in ink. Small octavo (20cm); publisher's navy blue cloth, titled in gilt on the spine and cover, with pictorial elements gilt-stamped on the front panel; floral endpapers; vi,452,[4](ads)pp.; map frontispiece, text illus. throughout. A handsome copy, the board corners just a touch rubbed; internally very fresh, with the endpapers free of toning or wear; Near Fine.

Like many of Donnelly's works, Ragnarok is an odd amalgamation of hard science, pseudoscience, and speculative fiction – in this case proposing a catastrophic event in which a comet impacted Earth twelve thousand years ago, detroying the biosphere with rain and fire and wiping out an advanced human civilization, killing off most of humanity, with a remnant hiding out deep in caves until a time presented itself to sre-start civilization from scratch. The book was a popular success, but widely rebuked by the scientific community.

This "Eleventh edition" (actually a stereotype reprint of the original Appleton edition) was issued by a small Chicago publisher mostly devoted to publishing encyclopedias and school texts; the book is attractively produced, on very good paper, and quite uncommon in this edition. Intriguingly, this copy is inscribed by the noted early science fiction writer William Hosea Ballou, whose own works on scientific subjects similarly combined informed (but occasionally specious) scientific knowledge with fantastical theories and fictional elements. The recipient, Mary Lou Dearing, was a prominent citizen of Lynchburg, Virginia, the only child of Confederate Civil War General James Dearing. BAL 4813 (for the 1st edition, 1882); BLEILER 852-853.

Price: $450.00

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