Theodor Herzl - Altneuland - 1902

Altneuland. Roman Von Theodor Herzl

Leipzig: Hermann Seemann Nachfolger, 1902

A second edition of Herzl's Utopian novel in which he envisioned the social and cultural climate of a new Hebrew Nation. Incredibly rare.

Old New-Land is a utopian novel published by Theodor Herzl. The novel tells the story of Friedrich LÃ wenberg, a young Jewish Viennese intellectual, who, tired with European decadence, joins an Americanized Prussian aristocrat named Kingscourt as they retire to a remote Pacific island (it is specifically mentioned as being part of the Cook Islands, near Raratonga) in 1902. Stopping in Jaffa on their way to the Pacific, they find Palestine a backward, destitute and sparsely populated land, as it appeared to Herzl on his visit in 1898. LÃ wenberg and Kingscourt spend the following twenty years on the island, cut off from civilization. As they stop over in Palestine on their way back to Europe in 1923, they are astonished to discover a land drastically transformed. A Jewish state officially named the "New Society" has since risen as European Jews have rediscovered and re-inhabited their Altneuland, reclaiming their own destiny in the Land of Israel. The country, whose leaders include some old acquaintances from Vienna, is now prosperous and well-populated, boasts a thriving cooperative industry based on state-of-the-art technology, and is home to a free, just, and cosmopolitan modern society. Arabs have full equal rights with Jews, with an Arab engineer among the New Society's leaders, and most merchants in the country are Armenians, Greeks, and members of other ethnic groups. The duo arrives at the time of a general election campaign, during which a fanatical rabbi establishes a political platform arguing that the country belongs exclusively to Jews and demands non-Jewish citizens be stripped of their voting rights, but is ultimately defeated.

8vo, bound in the publishers decorative cloth, brown endpapers. All page edges red.

The contents are complete in 343pp, [2]

Condition: Binding is holding firmly and in good condition, slight lean toward upper board, worn to surfaces with fading, bumped to corners and rubbed to spine. Few marks to boards. Contents are holding firmly and in very good condition, toned and browned, last 8 leaves or so loose / pulling to gatherings, fore margins to the initial few leaves with short closed tears, page edges brittle. Ink ownership to endpaper and titlepage. Please see images for further condition.