Habitable World: Signed (3 results)
- Softcover
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: marvin granlund, emeryville, CA, U.S.A.marvin granlund
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Softcover. Condition: Fine. First Edition. Fine inscribed paperback first edition (copyright 2001, no edition stated, NAP). Inscribed by the author on the title page dated: 2002. 80 pages, unmarked ; UO15 F2F; 6.75 X 0.25 X 7.75 inches; 80 pages; Signed by Author.
- Softcover
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: Invicta Books P.B.F.A., Builth Wells, POWYS, United KingdomInvicta Books P.B.F.A.
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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Large inscription from the author on the title page illustrated 353 pages. Signed by Author(s).
Published by Saint Louis, Missouri Territory 1818
- Signed
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA
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1p. Without the blank leaf for address. Signed by Symmes, "Jno. Cleves Symmes". 1 vols. 4to. The original signed broadside proposing an expedition to the Hollow Earth led by Capt. John Cleves Symmes. Symmes (1779-1829) saw distinguished service in the War of 1812 and thereafter devoted himself to popularizing his theory that "th…e earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles . . ." This was rooted in the Mundus Subterraneus (1665) of Athanasius Kircher, and the pseudoscience notions of concentric spheres and polar openings propounded by astronomer Edmund Halley in 1692 in an attempt to account for observed magnetic phenomena. Symmes was a charismatic and persuasive lecturer: ". I have ready for the press, a Treatise on the principles of Matter, wherein I will show the proofs of the above position . I ask one hundred brave companions, well equipped, to start from Siberia in the fall season, with Reindeer and slays, on the ice of the frozen sea; I will engage to find warm and rich land, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals if not men, on reaching one degree northward of latitude 82 ." Despite his assertion, Symmes published nothing after this broadside. He twice petitioned Congress for funds for the expedition, but it was never undertaken, and he died at a relatively young age. It was a disciple, James McBride (1788-1859, who published Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres; Demonstrating That the Earth is Hollow, Habitable Within, and Widely Open about the Poles (1826). The ideas of Symmes proved remarkably long-lived: his youngest son Americus in 1878 published The Symmes Theory of Concentric Spheres. Symmes is cited as a likely influence upon Poe's Antarctic fantasia, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), and the theories also inspired a tradition of hollow earth stories in science fiction and fantasy, beginning with Symzonia (1820) and continuing into the twentieth century with Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels At the Earth's Core (1914) and Pellucidar (1915). Only three locations are noted in OCLC: AAS, Lilly Library, and Univ. of Missouri (St. Louis Mercantile). EXCEEDINGLY RARE. Shaw 44587; Missouri Imprints 20; American Antiquarian Society, Society's Chief Joys 98 Usual folds. Docketed on verso, ?recd 14th Novr? 1p. Without the blank leaf for address. Signed by Symmes, ?Jno. Cleves Symmes? 1 vols. 4to. Signed.
