THE GREAT WAR OF 189-: A FORECAST. London: William Heinemann, 1893. Octavo, pp. [i-vii] viii [ix] x [xi-xii] [1] 2-308, three inserted folding plates, one inserted folding map, numerous other illustrations in the text, original pictorial red cloth, front panel stamped in black and gray, publisher's monogram stamped in blind on rear panel, spine panel stamped in gold, top edge untrimmed, other edges trimmed. First edition. Variant binding of red cloth (green cloth is more frequently seen), but all other respects the same as the green cloth copies. The first lavishly illustrated account of an imaginary war to appear in English "offers startling anticipations of World War I ... Competently prepared, apparently seriously intended, and more interesting than most members of the form." - Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 455. This seminal work, first published in 1892 as a serial in BLACK AND WHITE, a popular British illustrated weekly, as "The Great War of 1892," influenced subsequent accounts of imaginary war by George Griffith, Louis Tracy, M. P. Shiel and others. Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 1-46; (1987) 1-26; and (1995) 1-26. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 180. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 19. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War 1763-1984, pp. 66-8. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars 1763-3749, pp. 62-3. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, pp. 56-7. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 51. Bleiler (1978), p. 47. Reginald 03229. Endpapers and page edges a bit tanned, several stains to spine panel, a sound, very good copy. This book rarely turns up in better condition. (#141871).
Price: $450.00
No statement of printing.