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Parmele, Mary Platt (1843-1911).
Ariel; Or, the Author's World. A Metaphysical Story.
Publisher: The Alliance Publishing Company, New York;
Date of Publication: 1898
Stock Code: 14615
Duodecimo chapbook, pp., 79, [1] publisher’s advertisements. Marbled paper wraps, titled to paper labels to upper cover. Blind stamp of the Theosophical Society of Edinburgh to title-page. Toning to covers commensurate with age, minor shelf-wear to extremities, remnants of shelf-label to spine continuing to upper cover. Very minor soiling to head of contents but generally neat. A well-preserved copy. Outlandish supernatural fan-fiction about a man with the power to transport himself to a planet inhabited by characters from novels. The protagonist encounters characters from Dickens, Zola, Thackery, and more, and meets Frankenstein’s Monster. Mary Platt Parmele was an American popular historian. Her foray into supernatural fiction was apparently short-lived, as she published only this chapbook, and the more substantial ‘World of the Invisible’ (1902), which is similarly rare. An exceedingly rare and fascinating early work of fan-fiction. £400.00