CORALIA; A PLAINT OF FUTURITY. By the Author of "Pyrna, a Commune; or, Under the Ice." London: Samuel Tinsley, 10, Southampton Street, Strand, 1876. Octavo, pp. [1-4] [1] 2-217 [218: blank] [219-220: ad for PYRNA], publisher's decorated green cloth, front and rear panels stamped in blind, spine panel stamped in gold, top edge untrimmed. First edition, first printing. "An afterlife fantasy about a kind of Paradise, located in the depths of the ocean. Towards the end of the book, the protagonist is taken on a spirit tour of the universe, observing numerous other planets, many with life on them, and encountering huge, winged birds which fly in space. An imaginative but all to brief contribution to interplanetary fiction" (Locke, Voyages, 2001). CORALIA; A PLAINT OF FUTURITY "which conveys its protagonist posthumously to the land of Coralia under the sea, and subsequently into space, past the Moon and Sun, until she reaches the further stars, which are a heavenly abode – combines sf and fantasy and occultism" (SFE online). Ellis James Davis (1850-1905), a UK barrister, was briefly active as an author, mainly in the 1870s (see Suvin, pp. 159-160). Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy. pp. 13-14 (this copy). Locke, Voyages in Space (2011) V215. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 262. Suvin, Victorian Fiction in the UK, pp. 105-106; 159-160. Not in Lewis or Sargent. Not in Bleiler (1948; 1978, Day (1963) or Reginald (1979; 1992). Front free endpaper missing, inner front hinge a bit weak, still a tight, bright, very good copy. A scarce book. (#179078).
Price: $850.00
No statement of printing.