?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 18,000 - $ 25,000
EXTREMELY RARE SCIENCE FICTION CORNERSTONE WELLS, H.G. The First Men in the Moon. Illustrated with 12 inserted plates by Claude Shepperson. 8vo, original gilt-stamped dark blue cloth, minor rubbing to spine tips and corners with light exposure, else boards and spine clean and bright with no fading; original printed dust jacket, spine panel slightly tanned, overall light surface soiling, small dampstains confined to spine panel extremities, tiny nicks at flap fold corners, short closed tear along lower front panel; mild foxing to fore-edges and front and end matter, black endpapers; preserved in custom 1/4 calf drop-back case. London: George Newnes, 1901
first english edition, first printing in the first state binding and in an entirely unrestored and exceedingly scarce dust jacket. The U.S. Bowen-Merrill edition preceded the English edition by approximately one month. Very few copies known in first edition in original dust jacket. A remarkable survival. "A masterful fantasia on the theme of biological engineering and one of the first credible accounts of space travel" (Smith, p. 577). Currey, p. 518.
