She; A History of Adventure

New York: Harper, 1886. First Edition. Published Dec. 24, 1886, preceding the London edition of Jan. 1, 1887, though both title pages are dated 1887. Also preceding Munro's pirated edition in wrappers dated Dec. 31, 1886 and Harper's reissue in wrappers. Original publisher's three-quarter cloth (also seen in half cloth) and marbled paper over boards, 8vo (175 x 125mm), pp. vii, 316, plus two color plates inserted. Rubbed and toned, bookplate to the front pastedown, very good. THE imperial adventure novel, a fever dream of Africa in which a Cambridge scholar and his ward discover a lost civilization ruled by a two-thousand-year-old queen who bathes in the pillar of life and destroys what she loves. It has never been out of print, it has been filmed at least seven times, and it remains, after Dracula, the most influential fantasy of the Victorian era, the one that taught an empire to dream about what might be waiting 'for them' in the blank spaces on the map.