THE NEW REPUBLIC: A DISCOURSE OF THE PROSPECTS, DANGERS, DUTIES AND SAFETIES OF THE TIMES. Santa Rosa, California: Fountaingrove Press, 1891. Octavo, pp. [1-4] [1] 2-75 [76-78] [79-80: blank], original gray wrappers printed in black, all edges untrimmed. First edition. Issued as "Fountaingrove Library, Social Series," volume 1, number 1 (March 1891). "Evangelical treatise warns of an 'impending calamity' that will lead either to a millennial age guided by a wise minority or to a cataclysm. Describes capitalism as a primate 'survival' and develops a concept of 'social personality' similar to Bellamy's." - Roemer, The Obsolete Necessity, p. 191. "Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906) was successively Baptist, Universalist, Spiritualist, 'Independent Christian,' and utopian experimenter. His two experiments in practical communism were undertaken to carry out his religious principle of 'The Use,' of which the distinctive practices were 'open breathing,' a kind of respiration by which the Divine Breath was supposed to enter directly into the body, and a system of 'celibate marriage,' whereby each individual was left free to live in spiritual union with his heavenly counterpart. His book, THE NEW REPUBLIC (1891), is a strange mixture of theology and economic determinism. A great deal of his jargon is incomprehensible, but his book adds up to a severe indictment of the capitalistic system ... THE NEW REPUBLIC is directed to the 'Workers in Social Humanity, Nationalist Clubs, Socialistic and Labor Unions and kindred Societies; in the hope that contact of mind with mind and heart with heart may serve for mutual encouragement and advance of action in the common cause.' Perhaps some of these have read THE NEW REPUBLIC, but the book could not have had much influence. Its interest lies in suggesting how widespread the radical movement had become in 1891, and how varied was the group which supported Bellamy's Nationalism." - Parrington, American Dreams, pp. 163-165. Harris's "Fountaingrove Library" was short-lived. The second and last publication was a 15-page booklet, BROTHERHOOD OF THE NEW LIFE: LETTER FROM THOMAS LAKE HARRIS WITH PASSING REFERENCE TO RECENT CRITICISM, also issued in 1891. Kopp 839. Several shallow chips from the front cover, 55 mm chip from to the bottom of the spine panel, covers a bit age-darkened, internally fine and partially unopened. (#160997).
Price: $500.00
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