A.D. 2000 by FULLER, Lieut. Alvarado - 1890

Chicago: Laird & Lee, 1890. From the Bart Auerbach Collection. Askew in binding, slight wear at two corners and top of spine, endpaper cracked at rear inner hinge. 8vo. With 15 inserted plates with illustrations by W. Bretenyder. Contemporary black cloth, spine gilt-lettered and ruled, edges stained red. First edition, issued in paper wrappers and cloth. According to a Lloyd Currey catalogue description for a different copy in 2012, "there were two hardbound issues (printings?) of this book (priority unknown) with title-pages dates 1890 (later reprints have no date on the title-page), one variant with page [416] blank and no half-title [as this copy], the other with an ad on page [416] and a half-title leaf..." On the front pastedown are the penciled names and dates (from 1891 to 1904) of early readers of this copy; related penciled comments are on the front free endpaper and the last page of text.

The novel (is it the earliest American work of science fiction to be so fully illustrated?) is set in the U.S.A. of 2000 A.D. and offers many parallels to Edward Bellamy's 'Looking Backward' (1888). The climax to the book is the conquest of the North Pole through advanced technology. Not in Wright. Bleiler, p. 78; Negley 398; Sargent (1988), pp. 84-5.