Item #140942944 Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd. John Uri Lloyd, J. Augustus Knapp, Illustrations.
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd
Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd

Etidorpha, or the End of the Earth: The Strange History of a Mysterious Being and the Account of a Remarkable Journey as Communicated in Manuscript to Llewellyn Drury Who Promised to Print the Same, but Finally Evaded the Responsibility which was Assumed by John Uri Lloyd

Cincinnati: John Uri Lloyd, 1895.

First edition. Signed by the author in ink at the end of a two-page facsimile note at the front, as issued. One of approximately 1200 copies. xiii, 376 pp. With frontispiece and numerous illustrations by J. Augustus Knapp. Another facsimile note from the author is tipped in at the rear. "To the Subscribers" sheet is laid in at front. Publisher's brown cloth with gilt lettering and design on cover and spine, top edge gilt, black coated endpapers. Near Fine, lightly shelf worn.

A scarce early science fiction novel. Its title is the goddess Aphrodite's name spelled backwards. These first editions of Etidorhpa were distributed privately. Eventually a popular success, the book had eighteen editions and was translated into seven languages. Etidorhpa literary clubs were founded in the United States, and some parents even named their (unfortunate) infant daughters Etidorhpa.

The novel begins with the narrator, The-Man-Who-Did-It, betraying an unnamed secret society, which leads to his kidnapping, a la the 1826 case of William Morgan. The narrator is sent to a cave in Kentucky that leads to the earth's lush interior, it being hollow and all. Gigantic mushrooms grow there. When the narrator nibbles a little of one he blasts off on a trip, taking the reader with him. Etidorpha has been called "the first psychedelic novel." Whether or not that's accurate, Terence McKenna was a fan of the book, who speculated that the author's observant account of hallucinations was based on firsthand experience. This is quite possible as Lloyd was a pharmacist and his brother Curtis a mycologist. He also reputedly predicted the eruption of Vesuvius, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and the powering of cars without gasoline, according to his other acolytes. A true literary anomaly. Item #140942944

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