L. W. Currey, Inc.

[Cabet, Etienne.]. VOYAGE ET AVENTURES DE LORD VILLIAM CARISDALL EN ICARIE, Traduits de l'Anglais de Francis Adams par Th. Dufruit, Maitre de Langues [pseudonym]. Paris: Hippolyte Souverain, Éditeur, 1840 [i.e. 1839]. Octavo, two volumes: pp. [1-4] [1] 2-400 [401] [402, mis-paged "378"; [1-4] [1] 2-508 [509] 510, contemporary nineteenth-century quarter brown calf and marbled boards, spine panels stamped in gold and blind, marbled endpapers, edges speckled blue. First edition. "One of the most influential of all utopian writers, Cabet was not satisfied with simply describing the perfect society but tried to put it into effect ... The book itself is, as are so many utopian works, dull, scant of plot, weighted down with administrative details of the perfect society of Icaria. Nevertheless, it is one of the most important of all utopian works because with all its faults it provided inspiration for numerous attempts to follow its principles. Some of these attempts came close to forming a genuine utopian society, and, with just a little more luck, they might have succeeded." - Lewis, Utopian Literature, pp. 35-6. This book has not been fully translated into English but a summary of the work appears in Negley and Patrick, Quest for Utopia (1952). Fortunati and Trousson, eds., Dictionary of Literary Utopias, pp. 675-76. Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel C1. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 174. Versins, Encyclopédie de l'Utopie, des Voyages Extraordinaires et de la Science Fiction, pp. 140-41. Adams, Radical Literature, p. 45. Kress C7309. Sabin 9788. Spine panels professionally restored, faint, mild foxing to a few leaves early and late, a very good, handsome copy. All editions prior to 1848 are rare, the first edition being particularly so. (#157072).

Price: $7,500.00