Search Results: Dystopias from Lorne Bair Rare Books

New York: Berkley Publishing Corp, 1962. First Edition. First Printing, a paperback original novel. Octavo (18cm); original pictorial card wrappers; red edge-staining; [6],7-158,[2]pp. Slight forward lean, faint vertical crease to left edge of front wrappers, with a few pinpoint rubbed spots to extremities; text is fresh, with the edge-staining bright and unfaded; Very Good+. An attractive copy of the author's second novel. "Earth's climate enters a new phase, similar to the conditions of the Triassic; the ice caps melt and natural selection produces an appropriate ecosphere. As humans struggle vainly to adapt, "memories" locked in the most primitive parts of their nervous systems begin to respond to the call of circumstance. A marvelous culmination of the long British tradition of ambivalent disaster stories" (Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4-37).

New York: Random House, (1952). First Edition. First printing. Octavo. Black cloth hardcover, with foil-stamped decorations in colors; dustjacket; 438pp. Small spot of abrasion at upper edge of rear board; mild ageing to endpapers; still a tight, Very Good or better copy. In the original dustwrapper, unclipped (priced $3.50 on front flap), bright and whole with a few small closed tears at extremities, VG+. Future dystopia, set in 1990 following a Third World War. "...A fierce attack on 20th century civilization and its constant attempts to find utopia through excision of perceived evils" (Lewis, Utopian Literature in the Pennsylvania State Libraries, p.212). NEGLEY 1208.

New York: Atheneum, 1965. First American Edition. First Printing. Octavo (21cm); green paper-covered boards over brown cloth backstrip, titled in blind on cover and gilt on spine; yellow topstain; yellow dustjacket by Lawrence Ratzkin; 190pp. Fine. The dustjacket is unclipped (priced $3.95) with evidence of price sticker removal on the upper front panel; mild sunning to spine; Very Good+. Film critic's debut novel exploring homosexuality and a pandemic of unknown origins. "London - the London of Now - is terrorized by the Plague. Not a Nuclear Holocaust. That would be too simple. Too easy. No - a Plague. Origins unknown. Cure: none. Death comes not at once or Together, but Singly. One by One." (from the dustjacket). Not in YOUNG.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952. Book Club Edition. Octavo (20.75cm); teal cloth, with titles stamped in dark purple on spine; dark yellow topstain; dustjacket; [8], 295, [1]pp. Bookplate signed by the author loosely laid in. Pinpoint wear to spine ends and corner tips, lower corners gently tapped (though still sharp), with contemporary date (6/6/53) in ink to upper front pastedown and previous owners name roughly erased from front endpaper; Very Good+. Dustjacket is clipped at all four corners, sunned at spine and extremities, with overall wear, a few nicks, short tears and attendant creases to edges; Very Good. Vonnegut's first book, a machine dystopia with a huge unemployed population where the engineers are in control. SARGENT p.121, NEGLEY 1150.

Garden City: Doubleday, 1950. First Edition. First printing. Octavo; cloth hardcover; [8],277,[3]pp. Fine in bright, unclipped dustwrapper (priced $3.00 on front flap). The author's first novel, a cold-war classic set in a genteel suburb of New York following an apocalyptic nuclear attack. Source for the 1954 television drama Atomic Attack which starred Phyllis Baxter and Walter Matthau. "...One of the very best stories of nuclear Holocaust." (Encyclopedia of Science fiction, on-line resource).

New York: The Feminists, n.d., ca. 1969. First Edition. Quarto (28cm.); self-wrappers staplebound at top left-hand corner; 6pp.; printed from typescript on tan stock. Fine condition. Described in The Feminists publication catalog as "a pornographic study of pornography." Dystopic tale set at the fictional Eastgate Finishing School for Boys where the pupils must go around naked at all times while the instructors, all female, "are expected to use the boys sexually as such experience counts as part of the boy's training for the Masculine Role" (p. 1). This story was reprinted in the June 19th, 1970, issue of Everywoman. OCLC locates 3 copies of this edition as of April, 2019, at Central Connecticut, Kansas, and UVA.

New York: The Feminists, n.d., ca. 1969. First Edition. Quarto (28cm.); self-wrappers staplebound at top left-hand corner; 6pp.; printed from typescript on green stock. Light wear to extremities else Very Good or better. The Feminists organization rubberstamp to top edge of p. 1 as issued. Described in The Feminists publication catalog as "a pornographic study of pornography." Dystopic tale set at the fictional Eastgate Finishing School for Boys where the pupils must go around naked at all times while the instructors, all female, "are expected to use the boys sexually as such experience counts as part of the boy's training for the Masculine Role" (p. 1). This story was reprinted in the June 19th, 1970, issue of Everywoman. OCLC locates 3 copies of this edition as of April, 2019, at Central Connecticut, Kansas, and UVA.