L. W. Currey, Inc.

Huxley, Aldous. APE AND ESSENCE. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1948. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 1-205 [206: blank] [207: colophon] [208-210: blank] [note: last leaf is a blank], publisher's blue cloth, Harper's device stamped in light blue on front panel, spine panel stamped in light blue and gold, fore-edge untrimmed. First edition. "After a comprehensive atomic bomb catastrophe, man undergoes biological changes. Love is extinct, only collective seasonal sexual intercourse remains. The place of traditional religion has been taken by a hysterical worship of Belial, the god of evil." - Gerber, Utopian Fantasy (1973), pp. 156-57. "... scalpel-like satirical account of twentieth-century humans' failure to understand their nature. Lesser writers would not handle this scenario and theme intelligently until the 1960's." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-97. "Bleak and timely." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, p. 17. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-557. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 235. Survey of Science Fiction Literature I, pp. 78-83. Baird and Greenwood, An Annotated Bibliography of California Fiction 1664-1970 1274. Just a bit of gold leaf flaked off the spine panel, else a fine copy in very good gold-foil dust jacket (priced $2.50 on front flap) with wear along top and bottom edges with shallow loss at spine ends and corner tips, some spotting to spine panel, and vertical crease in front flap. A better than average example of the fragile dust jacket. (#159075).

Price: $150.00