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

Melbourne : Pater & Knapton, 1889. Octavo, modern binding of quarter-calf over marbled papered boards, spine titled in gilt, bound without wrappers; title page (with old wet stamp of Menzies’ Book Exchange), pp. 104; [8 – catalogue]; internally clean, a very good copy.

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