Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1000.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, two volumes: pp. [i-vi] [1] 2-200; [i-vi] [1] 2-203 [204: blank], original decorated burgundy cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, top and fore edges untrimmed, bottom edge trimmed, blue green coated endpapers. First edition. Trollope's only science fiction novel, originally published as a serial in BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, October 1881 -- March 1882. "The oddest item in all Trollope's fiction. THE FIXED PERIOD is set in the future republic of Britannula, an island off Australia. The president has decreed that all citizens reaching the age of sixty-seven are to enter a 'college.' There, they will be prepared for death at age sixty-eight. (Trollope was sixty-seven when he wrote the story and died five months before his sixty-eighth birthday.) The first candidate for this euthanasia, Gabriel Crasweller, loses his enthusiasm for the 'fixed period' scheme as his own term approaches. Rescue is provided by the British navy, which returns Britannula to the rational rule of the Empire. Critics have sneered at the poverty of science fiction imagination in this work. But the story is a nice reworking of Trollope's THE WARDEN (1855) where the elderly inhabitants of Hiram's Hospital are prepared for death in more traditional fashion." - Sutherland, Victorian Fiction, 227-8. "The story is rambling, as is usual with Trollope, and uneconomical. The vision of principles through a distorted character is only partly successful. Scholars of Trollope do not regard the novel very highly, perhaps because it is different from what one expects of the author, but THE FIXED PERIOD is by no means discreditable and is entertaining." - Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 2203. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 10. 188-9. Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), p. 1241. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 214 and A Spectrum of Fantasy Volume 3, p. 176. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 1110. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 68. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 24. Bleiler (1978), p. 195. Reginald 14249. Sadleir (Trollope) 62 (p. 124). NCBEL III 884. Not in Wolff. Cloth worn at spine ends and corner tips, labels removed from front cover of each volume, private owner's bookplate on front paste-down of each volume and also one on the verso of the front free endpaper of volume one, number 815 in a circle in red pencil a the top right corner of each title page, a good, sound copy with tight and generally clean interior. A late, rare Trollope. (#130740)
Seller: Currey, L.W. Inc. ABAA/ILAB, Elizabethtown, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Description: First Edition. 2 vols. 8vo. Sadleir 62; Sadleir scarcity schedule C4 Original crimson cloth, with a small gilt daisy inside a gilt circle on each upper cover. In red drop box. Some wear, else very good
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
TROLLOPE, Anthony.. The Fixed Period.. William Blackwood & Sons. 1882, 1882.
Price: US$1682.67 + shipping
Description: FIRST EDITION. 2 vols. Half titles. Orig. maroon cloth, front boards blocked with floral device in gilt, spines lettered in gilt; spines a little faded, extremities sl. rubbed with some wear to head & tail of spines, small library label to front boards. Stamps of the Parliament of Victoria Library. A good plus copy. Trollope Society Catalogue 69; Sadleir 62. Originally serialised in Blackwood's Magazine, Oct. 1881-March 1882. In an unusual departure for Trollope, The Fixed Period is set in a dystopian future, in the imaginary former British colony of Britannula. The plot centres around the struggle for command of Gladstonopolis, and the attempts by the British to re-impose colonial rule. The 'fixed period' alluded to in the title, is the useful life-span of the Britannula citizenry, after which point they are euthanised. Although set in the mid-20th century, Trollope shows relative restraint in terms of his imagined future, his inventiveness confined to developments in weaponry, improved global communication, the odd steam tricycle and a gladiatorial version of cricket.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom
TROLLOPE, Anthony.. The Fixed Period. A novel.. William Blackwood and Sons. 1882, 1882.
Price: US$3926.22 + shipping
Description: FIRST EDITION. 2 vols. Half titles. Original pink-red smooth cloth, small central flower motif to front boards, spines lettered in gilt; spines faded otherwise a fine crisp copy. Sadleir (Trollope Bibliography) 62; Wolff 6776. Trollope's unusual science fiction novel set on an island (Britannia) off the Australian coast where all resident are euthanised at the age of 68.
Seller: Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers, London, United Kingdom