Islandia by Wright, Austin Tappan - (c.1942)

New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Very Good. (c.1942). Later Printing. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [light soiling to covers, a couple of tiny light stains on spine, binding a little shaken (almost inevitable given the weight of the text block), front hinge feels a little weak but is not split or cracked]. Elaborately-imagined utopian novel about an island kingdom, toiled over by its author (a Harvard Law graduate who later held professorial posts at UC-Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania) for most of his life, ultimately typed up by his wife and daughter (from 5,000 longhand pages!) and published more than a decade after his death in a car accident in 1931. In truly obsessive fashion, he first wrote a 75,000-word history of his dream world, working it all out (geography, climate, language, literature, art, religion, its own calendar and mathemetical systems -- even a bibliography of imaginary works about the place) in his text and then drawing 53 maps to illustrate it. None of this is actually in the book as such -- it's just backstory, since the novel proper begins "where the history leaves off." [NOTE: this copy comes with a not-very-well-made photocopy of the dust jacket from a later edition of the book; it's not much, but it at least gives a small measure of protection to the book.] ***NOTE ALSO: Additional shipping charges for this heavy book may apply for non-U.S. customers, or for Priority Mail shipping within the U.S. (Media Mail shipping is still free, however); if this causes you concern, please inquire before placing your order.*** .