Krakatit
Praha [Prague]: Aventinum, 1924.
First edition, first printing. 254, [2] pp., text in Czech. Bound in publisher's printed wrappers. Very Good+ with moderate wear to covers and toning to contents, some thumbing to lower corners. Final page gathering detached.
The first edition of Karel Capek's prescient science novel about a man confronting the world-shattering possibilities of an explosive he has invented, called "Krakatit" after the cataclysmic 1883 volcano eruption that turned skies red worldwide. The Czech writer is best known for his play R.U.R. (1920), which introduced the word "robot," but Krakatit was also a hit when published in Czech in 1924 and in English a year later. By the time the book was adapted into a noir thriller in 1948, the atom bomb had given its possessors the power musingly described by a character in the novel: "There's simply no analogy in history to the power which you have in your hands...you can checkmate the world."
Price: $1,800