ALAS, BABYLON. Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, [1959]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. The inhabitants of Fort Repose, an isolated, small town in central Florida, cooperate to maintain order and stability during a catastrophic nuclear war. This best-selling novel is an "American pastorale, a hymn to self-sufficiency and the virtues of small-town life ... {The] book has something of the appeal of George Stewart's EARTH ABIDES, although it lacks that work's sweep and grandeur. Fundamentally a cosy fantasy, ALAS, BABYLON belongs very much to its period. It would be impossible to write such a hopeful novel about nuclear war today." - Pringle, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels 29. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-421. Brians, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984, pp. 273-4. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 115. Survey of Science Fiction Literature I, pp. 38-42. Private owner's bookplate affixed to front paste-down. A fine copy in very good dust jacket with wear at spine ends and two corner tips and 8 mm closed tear and associated horizontal crease at top edge of front panel. (#102696).
Price: $1,000.00
First edition so stated on copyright page.