Melbourne and Mars : my mysterious life on two planets. Extracts from the diary of a Melbourne merchant

Melbourne : Pater & Knapton, 1889. Octavo, lettered wrappers (fragile, edges conserved; title page, presentation inscription in pencil to p. 3, pp. 104; [8 – catalogue]; internally clean, a very good copy. Housed in a custom cloth clamshell box with gilt-lettered leather title label.

Melbourne and Mars is an early Australian work of utopian science fiction which compares life in the colony with that supposedly on Mars. ‘One of the most creative and fascinating utopian novels to come out of Colonial Victoria’, an analysis of the novel’s socialist, feminist and nationalist themes can be found in Zachary Kendal’s excellent online essay on the volume, which was reprinted in 2020.-https://grattanstreetpress.com/locating-melbourne-and-mars-in-the-world-of-literature/

Rare.

References:

Ferguson, J.A. Bibliography of Australia, 9744

Miller, E. Morris. Australian literature, v2, p. 639

Graeme Stone. Notes on Australian Science Fiction, p. 85