THE WORLD BELOW. London, Glasgow, Sydney, Auckland: W. Collins Sons & Co Ltd, [1929]. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-vi [1-2] 3-314, original blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First edition. A superior novel in which Wright explores human evolution based on degeneration of the race due primarily to continual destruction of past civilizations through the misuse of scientific discoveries. Comprises "The Amphibians," first published in book form in 1925, and its sequel, "The World Below," first published here. A third book was planned but never written. The story is "set in the far future, when humans are extinct and forgotten ... the time traveling protagonist accidentally precipitates a crisis in the affairs of a race of telepathic Amphibians who coexist with the giant humanoid Dwellers ... the first part [is] an imaginative tour de force." - Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 2-128. THE AMPHIBIANS is "a work comparable in its scope only to [Wells's ] THE TIME MACHINE and [Hodgson's] THE NIGHT LAND." - Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950, pp. 183-85. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 3-72; (1981) 2-128; (1987) 2-144; (1995) 2-154; and (2004) II-1293. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 2437. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 833. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 58. Gerber, Utopian Fantasy (1973), p. 150. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 235. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 1217. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, pp. 188. Survey of Science Fiction Literature V, pp. 2497-2500. In 333. Bleiler (1978), p. 213. Reginald 15670. A very good copy in very good later 3/6 pictorial dust jacket with wear and shallow chipping along top and bottom edges, mainly at spine ends and corner tips and some general dust soiling. This jacket, like the earlier version priced 7/6, is uncommon. (#170069).
Price: $500.00
No statement of printing.