Thoth Romance, First Edition (3 results)

Nice book, good plus, with clean unmarked interior, some fading of covers with wear around the edges. Slight spine roll, sturdy hinges. Subscription library bookplate on front pastedown, no other library markings at all. 24 page publisher's catalog in rear with printed date of "4/88" on last page.

Octavo, pp. [1-2] [i-v] vi-viii [ix] x [1] 2-228 + 24-page publisher's catalogue dated "8/88" on page 24 inserted at rear, original decorated reddish orange cloth, front panel stamped in gold and brown, spine panel stamped in gold, top and fore edges untrimmed, slate coated endpapers. Second edition, enlarged. This edition adds Nicholson's 4-page "Preface to the Second Edition," and "Appendix," pp. [211]-228, latter being "the last chapter of THOTH as originally written in 1876." The first of Nicholson's three anonymously published fantasy novels. "Lost race science fiction story set in the time of ancient Greece in which a superscientific race in the depths of Africa abducts some Grecian maidens and takes them away in an airship." - Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 16. "A semi-allegory of love and power, presented in a detached, almost fabular way. Essentially a descendant of Bulwer-Lytton's THE COMING RACE (1871) . One of the major science-fiction novels of the nineteenth century." - Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 1624. Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 685. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 79. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 36. Teitler and Locke, By the World Forgot (2013) 46. Bleiler (1978), p. 148. Reginald 10679. Binding leaned, cloth rubbed at spine ends, corner tips lightly worn, two tiny areas of wear to cloth along outer joint, a bit of mild soiling to cloth, a tight, internally clean, very good copy. Overall, a nice copy. The first printing of the second edition is, like the first edition, an uncommon book. An important edition of an important book. (#165799).

First Edition. First Impression. Octavo (19.75cm); russet cloth, titled in gilt on spine, with titling and pictorial elements stamped in black and gilt within a double-ruled border on front cover; hunter green endpapers; [vi],[1],2-209,[1] + 24pp publisher's catalog. Inscribed by the author to his wife along the upper margin of the front endpaper, around the time of publication: "Jeanie W. Nicholson / from Shield / 15th July 1888." Touch of dust-soil and a few faint foxed spots to text edges, else internally fresh and virtually without wear; very Near Fine.The first of three "fantastic romances" by Nicholson (1850-1927), an English author and economist. An impressive lost race novel, set in the time of ancient Greece, in which "a super-scientific race in the depths of Africa abducts some Grecian maidens and takes them away in an airship" (Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, Vol.1, p.16). ".around 400 BCE, where a city in the North African desert, settled 2,000 years earlier, has benefited from the scientific advances of its ruler, Thoth the First, who remains in suspended animation; but submarines, a rigorous application of eugenics in order to develop giant and pygmy slave classes, and airships fail to save the civilization from fatal degeneration caused mainly by savage misogyny, with women kept in pens as breeders" (Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 25 November, 2024). The novel went quickly into a second edition in 1889. The First is uncommon; of the 18 copies found in OCLC, only 7 are in US institutions. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, p.38.