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APOCRYPHAL STORIES.
London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd; New York: The Macmillan Company, [1949]. Octavo, First edition in English. Collects twenty-nine fictional short sketches of famous people or events with a satiric eye. Translated from the Czech original Kniha Apokryfu (1945) by Dora Round.
R.U.R. (ROSSUM'S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS): A FANTASTIC MELODRAMA ... Translated by Paul Selver ...
Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-x [xi] xii 1-187 [188-190: blank] [note: last leaf is a blank], four plates reproducing scenes from the 1922 Theatre Guild Production, title page printed in orange and black, original orange cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First edition in English. First printing with "first edition" on copyright page. R.U.R. was first published in Czech in Prague in 1920. "This play was first performed in 1921 in Prague and has since that time been translated and performed through the world. The word robot which Josef Capek coined for the play, based on the Czech word robota, 'forced labor,' has become a part of most modern languages." - Lewis, Utopian Literature, pp. 38-9. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 2-37; (1981) 2-13; (1987) 2-15; (1995) 2-16; and (2004) II-214. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 358. Negley, Utopian Literature 182. Survey of Science Fiction Literature IV, pp. 1837-43. Bleiler (1978), p. 39.
R.U.R. (ROSSUM'S UNIVERSAL ROBOTS): A PLAY IN THREE ACTS AND AN EPILOGUE ... Translated from the Czech by P. Selver and Adapted for the English Stage by Nigel Playfair.
London …: Humphrey Milford / Oxford University Press, 1923. Small octavo, pp. [1-5] 6-102 [103: ads] [104: blank], original printed black wrappers. First edition. This adaptation differs from that of the 1923 Doubleday, Page edition. "This play was first performed in 1921 in Prague and has since that time been translated and performed through the world. The word robot which Josef Capek coined for the play, based on the Czech word robota, 'forced labor,' has become a part of most modern languages." – Lewis, Utopian Literature, pp. 38-9. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 2-37; (1981) 2-13; (1987) 2-15; (1995) 2-16; and (2004) II-214. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 358. Negley, Utopian Literature 182. Survey of Science Fiction Literature IV, pp. 1837-43. Bleiler (1978), p. 39.
VALKA S MLOKY [WAR WITH THE NEWTS].
Praha: Nakladatel Fr. Borovy, 1936. Octavo, pp. [1-8] 9-348 [349-352] [353: ad] [354: blank], preliminaries printed in orange and black, original gray cloth, front panel stamped in brown and back, spine panel stamped in black. First edition. Capek's last novel, published in English in 1937 as WAR WITH THE NEWTS. "WAR WITH THE NEWTS is Capek's greatest work in the utopian genre. Closer to Swift than to Wells, it has a satirical tone absent in R.U.R., and is far less melodramatic. Like the earlier FACTORY FOR THE ABSOLUTE, the novel is a roman feuilleton, and it too appeared serially in Lidove noviny. The loose form of the roman feuilleton allowed Capek great freedom for satire and parody. The novel is a brilliant pastiche of the most diverse kinds of writing: newspaper articles, memoirs, scholarly works, manifestoes, etc. Every conceivable typographic device is employed for comic or satiric effect; there is even an obscure historical note printed in the older Czech type (svabach), as well as an extremely blurred and tiny photograph of the giant newts." - Harkins, Karel Capek, p. 95. "This novel is basically an elaboration of the theme of R.U.R. (1920). The newts are an alien species liberated from their subterranean home by an accident. They begin to learn human ways, and learn them all too well. Eventually they replace their models, providing in the meantime a particularly sharp caricature of human habits and politics. Slightly long-winded, but remains the most effective of Capek's works." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 2-17. Aldiss and Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree, p. 179. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 3-10; (1981) 2-14; (1987) 2-16; and (2004) II-215. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 71. Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), p. 191. Lewis, Utopian Literature, p. 39. Survey of Science Fiction Literature V, pp. 2424-28. Bleiler (1978), p. 39. Reginald 02558.
WAR WITH THE NEWTS. Translated by M. & R. Weatherall.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, [1937]. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 7-348 [349-352:blank] [note: first and last two leaves are blanks], original cream cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black, top edge stained yellow,fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge trimmed. First U. S. edition. "A masterpiece of political satire in which a race of intelligent and imitatively gifted amphibians discovered in the South Pacific are initially enslaved by humankind, but soon find a 'newt Hitler' to liberate them; when they flood the planet to increase their lebensraum their former conquerors are doomed. Its blackly effervescent humor acquired new depths of horrid irony within two years, establishing it as a uniquely fascinating work in retrospect." - Brian Stableford, Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-215. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 3-10; (1981) 2-14; (1987) 2-16; and (1995) 2-17. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 71. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 47. Survey of Science Fiction Literature V, pp. 2424-28. Bleiler (1978), p. 39. Reginald 02558.