Volonor

New York: Thomas Seltzer. Very Good in Good dj. 1925. 2nd printing. Hardcover. [moderately shelfworn, some dust-soiling to top edge, minor staining to fore-edge, one-time owner's ink signature at top of ffep; jacket worn and rubbed, various small tears and shallow chips, spine color-shifted, a few holes along rear hinge, soiling to rear panel]. (endpaper map illustration) Utopian fantasy novel about a young millionaire who forms a new republic on a Pacific island, with many of its ideals and general principles centering around the economic emancipation of women (which will also have the more pragmatic effect of protecting his sister from various suitors who are after her for her money). A contemporary reviewer, apparently unswayed by visions such an egalitarian society, thought it "a tale even more dizzy than is indicated by its yellow and purple paper jacket," that "rises to thrilling heights of battle, murder, and sudden death, and drops sheerly to depths of abysmally dull intrigue, like nothing in the world so much as a scenic railway." At least the author (or perhaps just the blurb-writer) can't be cited for lack of ambition, for the book is purported to make "a Direct Appeal to Puritans and Impuritans, Socialists and Individualists, Mothers and 'Old Maids,' Woman-haters and Flirts, [and] Scientists and Hod-Carriers." Don't miss the endpaper maps of the island of Volonor, which you'll need to find your way to the .