AFTER LONDON: OR, WILD ENGLAND. By Richard Jefferies.

(1885) 1886 2nd edition. 8vo (124 x 188mm). Ppvi,442,xvi[ads]. Not illustrated. Black ruled border and titles to red cloth, spine titled in gilt.

This book is divided into two parts, The Relapse into Barbarism and Wild England, and describes what happened "after London ended". Wild life and vegetation take over very quickly and the remaining population, such as it is, divide into warring tribes (they do still perform Greek drama, barbarism notwithstanding). Partly a meditiation on nature and partly Lord of the Flies on a vast scale. Well worth a read for anyone interested in the darker recesses of Jefferies' imagination, and quite probably the inspiration for much other well known literature such as Lord of the Flies, some elements of E.M. Forster's output, and more particularly, Wyndham's Triffid/Chrysalis/Kraken books and that whole genre. The interested reader will see a lot of familiar material here, lifted at a later date by many other authors. Originally published as two volumes in 1885. Although examples of the first edition were subsequently bound up as one volume, this edition of the following year was the first published as a single volume. Scarce.