The Rowan Gibbs Book Collection
Thursday, 16 November - Thursday, 14 December 2023
Thiusen Ingmar - Looking Forward or The Diothas
Estimate $100 - $200
Realised: $50 plus premium
Lot Details
G P Putnam's Sons, New York, 1890 vii, 358pp, small format (16mo), early rebind in maroon cloth, light scattered foxing. Ismar Thiusen pseudonym for John Macnie. This is the second edition of this American utopian novel, first published as "The Diothas or A Far Look Ahead" in 1888, described by Bleiler as “perhaps the second most important American nineteenth-century ideal society”, after "Bellamy’s Looking Backward". The author, born in Scotland, was for many years a professor in America. The hero of the book who by mesmerism finds himself in 96th century America, pictured as a utopia, is from the North Island of "Maoria" and Macnie refers in his text to social advances made in New Zealand.
