Item #15287 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE: A STORY OF THE YEAR 2236. Robert William Cole.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE: A STORY OF THE YEAR 2236.

London: Elliot Stock, 1900. Octavo, pp. [1-8] [1] 2-213 [214-216: blank] [note: first and last leaves are blanks], original dark olive green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, black coated endpapers, all edges untrimmed. First edition. Cole's first novel, THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE, "took the future war novel to its logical conclusion. In a utopian future the Anglo-Saxon Federation has expanded into other solar systems when interstellar warfare breaks out between Earth and a superior race from the Sirius system. The description of space battles, and of an Earth surrounded by a barrage of space torpedoes and mines while scientists struggle to perfect the ultimate weapon, makes it the equal of many of the space-opera stories of the 1930s." - Clute and Nicholls, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), p. 242. "The first real space opera, filled with space battles, invasions, and escalating weapons; a nineteenth-century E. E. Smith story in many respects ... A remarkable work for its time. While the theme of the story is obviously that of a naval imaginary war of the terrestrial sort, the author goes far beyond this in his concept of space empires, weapons, space tactics, and much else. The story vehicle is trivial, but the strengths elsewhere more than make up for this weakness. In some of the descriptions there is a touch like M. P. Shiel's. THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE is one of the great missed opportunities in the history of science-fiction. If it had been as well circulated as H. G. Wells's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (to which it is superior in concept, if weaker in execution) science-fiction might have developed a generation earlier." - Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 446. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 174. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 26. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars 1763-3749, p. 231. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 55. Locke, Voyages in Space 51. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 221. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 121. Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950, p. 133. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 79. Bleiler (1978), p. 46. Reginald 03168. A bright, tight, near fine copy. An excellent copy of a rare book. (15287). Item #15287

Price: $4,500.00

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