[UTOPIAN FICTION] LLOYD, John Uri; Augustus Knapp (illus)

Etidorhpa or the End of the Earth. The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury, Who Promised to Print the Same, But Finally Evaded the Responsibility.

Cincinnati: For The Author John Uri Lloyd, 1895. First Edition. Large octavo (23.5cm). Privately printed edition limited to 500 copies. Publisher's heavy pebble grained black leather titled and embellished in gilt and silver to spine and front board, professionally recased using the original materials. [xiii]; 376pp. Light rubbing to extremities, strong, tight and very handsome; internally clean and fresh, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, with Colesworthy's bookseller's label from Boston Mass. to the front flyleaf, signed by the author at the base of his facsimile letter to the reader as called for, bright and striking, illustrated throughout. A very good copy indeed, which would be a fine copy were it not for the spine repair, a frequent issue in this rather scarce limited edition, as the leather used was somewhat cheap, thin, and prone to drying and weakening along the joints.

A rather eccentric hollow-earth fantasy journey, synopsized as follows by Clute & Nicholls: "...the narrator is led by a blind humanoid to a lost world in the interior of the Earth, where he gains occult enlightenment into the higher forms of love (the title is Aphrodite reversed)...[the work], which went through at least 11 editions, is noteworthy for its bitter attack on the rational sciences. It was a wildly successful work, running to numerous editions in its early years and spawning fan clubs, obsessive devotees who read it as instructional prophecy, and a number of imitations and parodies."

Like other notable hollow-earth works of the period, it derives from the theories of John Cleves Symmes" (Clute and Nicholls, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 1993 p.727). Illustrated throughout after fantastical drawings by Augustus Knapp. NEGLEY 698. Not in Sargent.

Price: $1,850.00

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