Tomorrow's Eve

Villiers de L'isle-Adam; Translated and with an introduction by Robert Martin Adams

Published by University Of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, London, 1982

According to the information on the front flap of the jacket, this is the first English translation. It is also the First English Edition (NAP). The first edition from 1982 is also quite rare. In fact, I found only one other for sale anywhere on the Internet. You can see the covers in the photos. They are exceptionally clean. The silver lettering on the spine is nicely bright. There is little to no wear, just the slightest bit of crinkling at the bottom edge of the spine. The cover edges and corners are in excellent condition, no rubbing. The page edges look very good. The book is square and the spine is straight. The binding is very solid from cover to cover with nicely tight pages and nicely tight covers as well. The white inside covers and end papers are perfectly clean and free of any wear. The same can be said of all the pages in the book. Scrolling through, I'm not finding any instances of soiling. I'm not finding any instances of creasing. There are no markings. No attachments of any kind. And no one has written their name or anything else anywhere in the book. I have rated the dust jacket Very Good Minus. I have always had it in a fitted protective cover. There is a sliver of loss off the bottom edge of the rear cover, a thin tear off the top edge of the rear cover, and a tiny bit of scuffing at the spine ends. The flaps are also very clean and in excellent condition. There is a thin bit of toning at their top edges. 'The Future Eve (also translated as Tomorrow's Eve and The Eve of the Future is a symbolist science fiction novel by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Begun in 1878 and originally published in 1886, the novel is known for popularizing the term 'Android'. The Future Eve has been called equally stunning for its literary experimentation and its virulent misogyny. It has also been discussed as a key text in the Decadent movement, as a vital commentary on social and cultural ideas of 'hysteria' in relation to the work of Jean-Martin Charcot, and as an important work of 19th-century science fiction. The narrative nucleus of the novel, in which Edison dissects the female android Hadaly, has been discussed as a critical link between the spectatorial Gaze cultivated within the Anatomical theatre of the Renaissance and that of cinema.' Jean-Marie Mathias-Philippe Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (1838-1889) was a French symbolist writer. Though Villiers had many admirers in literary circles (the most important being his close friend Stephane Mallarme), mainstream newspapers found his fiction too eccentric to be saleable, and few theatres would run his plays. Villiers was forced to take odd jobs to support his family: he gave boxing lessons and worked in a funeral parlour and was employed as an assistant to a mountebank. Another money-making scheme Villiers considered was reciting his poetry to a paying public in a cage full of tigers, but he never acted on the idea. According to his friend Leon Bloy, Villiers was so poor he had to write most of his novel L'Eve future lying on his belly on bare floorboards, because the bailiffs had taken all his furniture. His poverty only increased his sense of aristocratic pride.'. Seller Inventory # 005495

Bibliographic Details

Title: Tomorrow's Eve
Publisher: University Of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, London
Publication Date: 1982
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Minus
Edition: 1st Edition