21 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS First English edition, first state of “the last of Wells’ classic scientific romances,” signed and dated by him in 1902. Wells’ forays into the genre he dubbed “scientific romance” “became the archetypal examples of a distinctive United Kingdom tradition of futuristic and speculative fiction” (Clute & Nicholls, 1313), and have had “an incalculable influence on modern literature and popular culture; their cosmic sweep and haunting pessimism have influenced most subsequent science fiction” (Stringer, 708). This first English edition was published just one month after the first American edition; this is the rare and desirable first state, with blue cloth stamped in gold and black endpapers. Plates and text fine, cloth with one tiny split to head of spine, gilt bright. A nearly fine copy. “Into The Dark, Into That Silence That Has No End”: The First Men In The Moon, Signed And Dated By H.G. Wells 20WELLS, H.G. The First Men in the Moon. London, 1901. Octavo, original blue cloth, custom slipcase. $22,000 Some force not himself impels him and go he must.”
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