COLYMBIA. London: Trübner & Co, 1873. Octavo, pp. [1-4] [1] 2-255 [256: blank], original bevel-edged blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, rear panel stamped in blind, top and bottom edges untrimmed, fore-edge rough trimmed, brown coated endpapers. First edition. Anonymously published utopian novel written by Robert Ellis Dudgeon (1820-1904), a Scottish homeopathic doctor, editor of the BRITISH JOURNAL OF HOMEOPATHY from 1846 to 1884, in a spirit of competition with EREWHON (1872; rev 1903) by Samuel Butler, who was Dudgeon's patient. COLYMBIA "is set on an equatorial archipelago in the Pacific and tells of a lost race of Englishmen interbred with Oceanic natives who inhabit a submarine city powered by tidal energy. Their remarkably free sexual practices allow Dudgeon to satirize those of Victorian England. COLYMBIA is livelier and more original than most of its kind." - Peter Nicholls, SFE online. "Mixture of satire and reform located under water" - Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 61. Blackford, et al., Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction, pp. 20; 224. Larnach, Materials Towards a Checklist of Australian Fantasy to 1937 (1950), p. 9 (incorrectly listing the book under the pseudonym "Clotilda"). Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy Volume II, p. 9. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 304. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 16. Teitler and Locke 264 (incorrectly listed under "Clotilda"). Reginald 37715. Not in Bleiler (1948; 1978). Australian and New Zealand "Lost Race" Fiction in the Collection of Stuart Teitler (private list), p. 1. A bright, very good copy. A rare book. (#154823).
Price: $1,500.00
No statement of printing.