THE CONFECTIONERS.
Bristol: J.W. Arrowsmith, 11 Quay Street, 1906. First Edition (& 1st printing). Octavo, original pictorial green cloth stamped in black. [315] pp., 4 pp publisher's ads at rear. Folding frontispiece chart in colours. Tanning to spine panel, a few small dings to the cloth, small W.. Smith & Son blindstamp on front free enndpaper. A very good sound copy of a very scarce book. Item #314505
¶ Science-Fantasy novel, which envisions a future in which there is a universal substance which can be molded into anything, & a universal force with which to do the molding. It opens with a literal interpretation of a quatrain from Lewis Caroll: "He said, 'I hunt for haddock's eye / Among the silent bright / I work them into waistcoat-buttons / In the silent night'." A humourous, if not just completely wacky; in one part of the novel there is an account of a running battle between the two authors as they compose the novel; all of which is likely imaginary, as we assume the book to be entirely the work of the Edwardian humourist Caine, and the co-author Fairbairn to be nonexistent.
Price (CAD): $125.00