Outer Darkness by Wright (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. First edition. A foundational early fantasy novel, credited by George Locke, along with two other books, as one of the forerunners "of the mystical but very imaginative interplanetary which was to culminate in David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus." A found manuscript novel of a cruel man sentenced in his afterlife to another planet, ruled by a cruel, capricious queen described by a contemporary reviewer as "a she-fiend, a blend of Circe and 'She,' omnipotent and omniscient in her own domain. So long as her subjects do not displease her, they enjoy themselves to their heart's content in the indulgence of their desires; but for the slightest offence they are tortured to death or consigned to perpetual misery immured in the most loathsome hells." Internally very good, solid textblock. Soiled cover has benefited from a light, expert cleaning, with reinforcement to inner hinges.

Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5-312 [note: title leaf is a cancel], original pictorial dark blue cloth, front panel stamped in red and white, spine panel stamped in white. First edition, Canadian issue. Published in 1906 in the UK by Greening & Co., Ltd. A fantastic allegory of evil and judgment after death. The transfer of the spirit of a brutish man, too evil for Heaven but not quite bad enough for Hell, to an unspecified planet (a sort of Purgatory) where he must lead a new life in a bloodthirsty, mediaeval civilization. The type of interplanetary fiction which, like Elizabeth Whiteley's THE DEVIL'S THRONE (Digby, Long 1903), was to lead to David Lindsay's classic metaphysical fantasy A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (Methuen 1920). Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1743. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 235. Bleiler (1978), p. 212. Reginald 15651. Cloth worn at spine ends and corner tips, delicate white enamel lettering perished from spine panel and some loss of white lettering on front panel, endpapers foxed, some scattered foxing to text block, two closed tears at edge of rear free endpaper with small tape mends, a good, sound copy. A decent copy of a major genre rarity, neither issue being easy to find in nice condition. (#111318).