Item #140949328 Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans." E. R. Smilie, Elton R. Smile, Pen Name.
Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."
Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."
Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."
Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."
Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."
Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."

Investigations and Experience of M. Shawtinbach, at Saar Soong, Sumatra. A Ret or Sequel to "The Manatitlans."

San Francisco: Joseph Winterburn & Company, 1879.

First edition, first printing. [2], iv, 3-263 pp. Bound in publisher's blindstamped brown cloth lettered in gilt on spine, coated yellow endpapers. Fine with light rubbing to extremities, light bubbling to cloth over rear board. A beautiful copy with crisp stamping and tight binding.

The first edition of a truly odd, uncommon early science fiction epistolary novel satirizing Darwin's theory of evolution. An Indonesian cult believes that humanity's woes result from the loss of its tail (shades of Lord Monbodo) and attempts surgical reattachment, resulting in an Ape-Man race of Kubu Orangs who co-exist with missionaries and pirates in a science fiction version of Sumatra. The book is a sequel to The Manatitlans, in which white explorers discover a Lost Race in South America. Mark Twain had a copy of Investigations and Experience and may have known the author, a physician and dentist who invented an anesthetic that combined ether with opium (the latter ingredient being superfluous and inactive). He worked with William T.G. Morton on chloroform but soon left New England for California to participate in the Gold Rush, a very Mark Twain thing to do. Item #140949328

Price: $2,500

Add to Cart Ask a Question Add to Wish List
See all items by , ,