Book Octavo, hardcover, VG ex library book with minimal markings in about

Book Octavo, hardcover, VG ex library book with minimal markings in about fine black dj in mylar. Assumed first printing. 339 pp. including index. Aldiss lays out the history of science fiction as a literary genre in a non-chronological format. For instance, the exploration of some ancient Roman fantasies often mistaken for science fiction occurs in chapter three, after Aldiss describes some eighteenth-and nineteenth-century literature. Aldiss's main contention is that science fiction started as a "lively sub-genre of the Gothic, " beginning with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Intriguingly, he added that Frankenstein shares narrative characteristics with the Marquis de Sade's Justine, since both novels are about an innocent person who wanders the world and is abused by virtually everyone he or she encounters. Aldiss separates authors into the "thinking pole" and the "dreaming pole" and claims that, while not every author at the thinking pole is a master at his craft, very few authors at the dreaming pole write well.

8vo 8 3/8"x 5 3/8" black cloth w/ yellow & blue lettering on spine; fore edge

8vo 8 3/8"x 5 3/8" black cloth w/ yellow & blue lettering on spine; fore edge untrimmed; 339 pgs w/ 5-pg intro; notes, bibliography & index; illus dust jacket w/ $7.95 on front flap, author photo on rear. jacket design by David November.