Contraptions

[1895].  226pp, plus publisher’s advertisements at rear , with seventy illustrations.  In purple cloth-covered boards with gilt titles front and spine.  12mo.  Cloth moderately rubbed at edges in places, corners and spine ends rounded and worn. Text block edges dull and dust-stained. Free endpapers tanned, college library bookplate on front paste down.  Hint of toning in page margins, very slightly loose, else internally neat and clean.

An anthology of illustrated stories, starting with The Pirates of Staddon, composed by staff of the Clarion – the left leaning newspaper The Clarion.  Heydon Perry’s contribution,  The Upper Hand, reads as an early version of The Planet of the Apes.