Un Habitant de La Planète Mars Parville, Henri de Literature

Illustrated. viii, 278, [2]pp. 1 vols. 12mo. Very attractive copy of the most celebrated novel of mid-century French author Henri de Parville (a pseudonym of François Henri Peudefer, 1839-1909), "based on a hoax newspaper article by Peudefer (signed A Lomon). published 17 May 1865 Le Pays, and purporting to describe the discovery of a humanoid fossil from Mars in a deep geological stratum. The novel comprises in part a satire on the process of scientific examination of this fossil, which shifts into an expansive extrapolation of nineteenth-century Cosmology" (Encyclopedia of Science Fiction). The novel was translated by Brian Stableford as An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars (2008). Contemporary French quarter crimson morocco and pebbled cloth, upper cover stamped in gilt, "Miss Kate Combes / Fort Washington Institute / April 10, 1871", a.e.g. Bookseller's label, F.W. Christern New York University Place" on front pastedown Illustrated. viii, 278, [2]pp. 1 vols. 12mo