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Burdekin, Katharine Penelope, writing as "Murray Constantine.". SWASTIKA NIGHT. Victor Gollancz Ltd, London, 1937.

Price: US$2000.00 + shipping

Description: Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5-287 [288], original blue cloth, spine stamped in dark blue. Important proto-feminist scientific romance. Burdekin's "best known novel examines a Nazi-dominated Europe 500 years hence through the eyes of the young German protagonist, who begins to understand that something is perhaps awry in a world where women are breeding-animals and Hitler is deified . a writer of considerable interest. Her work is at times surreptitiously couched, and her message is too often found embedded in romance-fiction plotting, but Burdekin can now be seen as a figure of contemporary interest." - Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), p. 175. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 2-21; (1995) 2-26; and (2004) II-278. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p 71. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, pp. 57-8. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 213. Bleiler (1978), p. 48. Reginald 03323. Light foxing to page edges, preliminary and terminal leaves, some darkening to spine panel, a nearly fine copy. A nice copy of a scarce book. (30401)

Seller: John W. Knott, Jr, Bookseller, ABAA/ILAB, Laurel, MD, U.S.A.

CONSTANTINE, Murray; pseudonym of BURDEKIN, Katharine. SWASTIKA NIGHT. London: Victor Gollancz., 1937.

Price: US$9361.21 + shipping

Description: First edition, first printing of an important feminist dystopia. Publisher's original blue cloth with dark blue titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. An excellent near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents, with a binding flaw to the upper corner of page 5 (the page edge was not entirely cut in the guillotine resulting is the corner being torn and still attached to the preceding page) are otherwise clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the better than very good lightly rubbed and darkened dustwrapper that is nicked at the corners and has a short closed tear to the bottom right of the upper spine fold. Correctly priced 7/6 net to the spine. An attractive example An attractive example of this scarce pseudonymous novel by Katharine Burdekin, an important author of feminist and dystopian fiction who fell into literary obscurity for over forty years until she was rediscovered in the 1980s by the scholar and critic Daphne Patai. One of the most original of all the many anti-fascist dystopias of the late 1930s, Swastika Night bears striking similarities to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. While Orwell's dystopia is embedded in our culture, Burdekin's equally powerful novel, written more than a decade earlier and exploring parallel themes was almost completely unknown until being reissued by The Feminist Press in 1985. Further details and images for any of the items listed are available on request. Lucius Books welcomes direct contact with our customers.

Seller: LUCIUS BOOKS (ABA, ILAB, PBFA), York, United Kingdom