Philistia

Metadata

Title

Philistia

Author

Allen, Grant, 1848-1899

Publisher

London : Chatto & Windus

Date

1888

Description

Publisher's advertisements appear before and after text. Advertisements after the text dated June, 1889.

In publisher's binding, paper covered boards; advertisement for Pears' soap on back cover; advertisements on pastedowns and flyleaves.

This is Grant Allen’s first published novel, and it reflects his point of view as a socialist and an agnostic. It is a satire on socialism and modern journalism. According to Elizabeth Miller in her Slow Print (2013), “In the radical press it was assumed that even a genuinely socialist novel would reach only

middle-class readers. J. Hunter Watts’s 1888 review of Grant Allen’s Philistia considers it ‘the best Socialist novel we have read’ but dryly notes that it ‘would have done us invaluable service in propaganda among the middle and upper classes, ‘who alone have leisure for novel reading,’ except that those classes are so unlikely to be swayed.”

Format

2, vi, 317 p. ; 18 cm.

Language

eng

Type

Yellowbacks

Publishers' advertisements 1889

Publishers' paper bindings (Binding)

Provenance

Athenaeum's copy stamped on t.p.: "Received Feb 3 1890 The Athenaeum."

Citation

Allen, Grant, 1848-1899, “Philistia,” Yellowbacks, accessed April 28, 2024, http://omeka.philaathenaeum.org/yellowbacks/items/show/344.