THE FIXED PERIOD. A Novel. In Two Volumes.
Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1882. Original antique-rose cloth.
First Edition of one of the strangest of all of Trollope's novels, about the imaginary, dystopian, former British colony of Britannula in the mid-20th Century...
On an imaginary island near Australia over which the English had renounced their sovereignty, a government had been established, one of whose leading principles was the doctrine of the "Fixed Period." This law sought to solve the problem of old age, by "depositing" all inhabitants at the age of sixty-seven in a "college" where they would be comfortably housed until, at some time before their next birthday, there would be euthanasia... [Gerould]
THE FIXED PERIOD was published in "probably February" 1882, Trollope turned 67 that April, and he died that December -- during his own Fixed Period! Creepy!
This is a very good-plus copy in the original antique-rose cloth: there is virtually no wear or soil at all, but this set suffers from what always afflicts this color cloth -- fading of the spines (and of parts of the covers, to a lesser degree). The Vol I half-title does have a small Christmas 1941 inscription, but the original dark-green-coated endpapers are clean and intact. Sadleir places the relative scarcity of THE FIXED PERIOD about in the middle of Trollope's novels, but in our forty years we have never seen a better copy. Sadleir (TROLLOPE) 62; Sadleir (XIX) p. 382; Wolff 6776. Provenance: loosely-inserted is the "hobby horse" bookplate" of the famous bibliophile A. Edward Newton, but we do not know that this set was in fact in his library. Item #14626
Price: $1,250.00