"The Iron Heel", by Jack London, published by Grosset & Dunlap, September 1917 [1st printing appeared February 1908].

This novel is considered one of the first examples of dystopian fiction.

"the people of that age were phrase slaves.... So befuddled and chaotic were their minds that the utterance of a single word could negate the generalizations of a lifetime of serious research and thought. Such a word was the adjective utopian." [Iron Heel, 79-80]

Sinclair Lewis, who wrote the electrifying classic "It Can't Happen Here" (1935) about the advent of a Nazi regime in Washington, D.C.- owed much of his inspiration to London's "The Iron Heel," which was first published in 1908. London's dystopian novel also inspired George Orwell when he wrote "1984", and it deserves recognition as the first modern American novel to sound the alarm about the dangers of a dictatorship in the United States. "The Iron Heel" has never achieved the popularity of London's dog stories- "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang," but from the moment that Europe began to drift toward fascism in the 1920s, and then throughout the twentieth century, it was widely read in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, and hailed as a great, prophetic work of art by the likes of Leon Trotsky, the exiled Russian revolutionary, and Anatole France, the Nobel Prize-winning French novelist.

One hundred years after its initial publication, London's political ideas and cultural insights seem remarkably contemporary. Indeed, in "The Iron Heel," he describes a sinister conspiracy, by an oligarchy, to quash freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, imprison its outspoken opponents and critics, control news and information, install a professional army of paid mercenaries, create a secret police force, and wage global warfare for economic hegemony. There's also guerrilla warfare, furious acts of wanton terrorism, and cold-blooded terrorists- a world roiling in violence that might be taken for the world of the twenty-first century.

US: Priority (c.2-4 days) ------------- $8.50
Canada: Priority (c.2-6 weeks) ------ $27.50
World: Priority (c.2-8 weeks) ------- $37.50

Hard boards, original beige cloth with the first edition design showing hands reaching up towards the sun [some soiling]. 5” x 7.1/2”; penciled name on the front endpaper; 354 pages, very good condition.