ROADTOWN. New York: Roadtown Press, [1910]. Octavo, pp. [1-14] 1-172 [173-178: blank] [note: first four and last three leaves are blanks, first and last used as front and rear paste-downs], original maroon cloth, front and spine panel stamped in white, hand-colored pictorial paper label affixed to front cover. First edition. Utopian proposal for the ideal city. "Chambless, a patent examiner, proposes a plan to solve the increased urbanization and problems of large cities. Environmentalism and equality are important values ... [He] devised an ingenious scheme to prevent overcrowding in the city. He created one continuous city from New York to San Francisco consisting of an endless two-story building that provided habitation for the entire population. Thus, a small group of immediate neighbors would prevent the loneliness that afflicted farm and country people, while at the same time the shape of the building prevented a large group of people from massing in any one place." - Rooney, Dreams and Visions (1985), p. 131; 184. Chambless facetiously dedicated the book to J. P. Morgan, "a straight player of a crooked game." "Foreword" by American novelist Julian Hawthorne. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 192. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 148. Hanna, A Mirror for the Nation 653. Spine ends and corner tips lightly rubbed, a nearly fine copy in a very good pictorial dust jacket with shelf wear along top and bottom edges and some general dust soiling. The only jacketed copy we have seen. The jacket is of bibliographical interest as the spine panel identifies the two issues of the book; plain copies priced $1.25 net, and copies with "Cover Picture Hand Colored" priced $1.35 net. This copy has the hand-colored onlay, presumably the scarcer and more desirable issue. (#152994).
Price: $2,500.00
No statement of printing on copyright page.