PLANETENFEUER. EIN ZUKUNFTSROMAN. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1899. Octavo, pp. [1-5] 6-334, original yellow wrappers printed in black. First edition. PLANETENFEUER is a somewhat decadent socialist utopia in the year 1999, featuring a seven-hour work day and liberated but lonely women. In the second part of the novel, two planets collide. Many people are killed but mankind survives the catastrophe. According to Sapra, PLANETENFEUER expresses a pessimistic mood which is rare in the Zukunftsroman of the time (Lexicon, pp. 112-3). PLANETENFEUER is one of the five novels analyzed in depth in William S. Lewis, Catastrophist/Eschatological Motifs in German Speculative Fiction, 1895-1925. Kretzmann, The Pre-War German Utopian Novel (1890-1914), Ph.D. diss., Brown University, May, 1936, p. 212. Bloch (2002) 1404. Nagl, p. 247. Professionally rebound in boards with front and rear covers preserved, a fine copy. (#133034).
Price: $1,250.00
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