Deluge - A Romance
Stunning British first edition in jacket, 1927
Originally self-published in 1927, Deluge by S. Fowler Wright became a major commercial success and an early classic of disaster and post-apocalyptic fiction. Depicting humanity’s struggle for survival after a global flood destroys civilization, it later inspired a 1933 Hollywood film adaptation.
This highly scarce original British first edition, issued a year before the more widespread American edition, is exceptionally hard to find, particularly in the original dust jacket.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo green boards stamped and ruled in black. London: Fowler Wright, LTD. Publishers, 1927. #11208.
Stunning fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket. Incredibly well-preserved with only a couple of closed tears and minimal loss at jacket folds.
This highly scarce original British first edition, issued a year before the more widespread American edition, is exceptionally hard to find, particularly in the original dust jacket.
Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo green boards stamped and ruled in black. London: Fowler Wright, LTD. Publishers, 1927. #11208.
Stunning fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket. Incredibly well-preserved with only a couple of closed tears and minimal loss at jacket folds.
Additional Details
Deluge (1927) by S. Fowler Wright is a pioneering work of disaster and post-apocalyptic fiction with a starkly anti-modern and socially reactionary outlook. A slight geological land shift floods most of civilization, leaving only parts of the English Midlands above water.
At the story’s center is Martin Webster, a lawyer mourning the loss of his family, who finds companionship in Claire Arlington, a determined athlete and one of the few women to survive. Their bond is tested when Martin learns that his wife Helen and their two children, whom he believed dead, have survived.
Beyond its tale of survival and tangled relationships, Deluge is a meditation on the collapse of industrial civilization and what might rise from its ruins. Wright condemns the mechanized world for blinding humanity to the simple beauty and balance of life, writing, “Men substituted the dead smoke for the living light, the dead steel for the living hand, the dead steam for the living horse, fatuously believing that they progressed toward some higher plane of being than that which their Master had provided for them.” The flood becomes both punishment and purification, yet the society that emerges afterward is anything but ideal. It is a world of harsh necessity, where strength and possession define morality, and where the scarcity of women leads to a grim social order in which they are claimed or compelled to choose partners to avoid being taken by force.
Originally self-published by Wright, who had worked as an accountant, Deluge quickly gained attention and was reissued by the Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, becoming a bestseller in both Britain and the United States. Its influence can be felt in the later catastrophe novels of John Wyndham and John Christopher.
A 1933 Hollywood adaptation set in New York took great liberties with the source material but found commercial success and brought Wright wider recognition. Wright followed it with a sequel, Dawn (1929), though it never achieved the same impact. Deluge remains his most enduring and provocative work, a striking vision of destruction and renewal that questions whether humanity can ever truly begin again.
At the story’s center is Martin Webster, a lawyer mourning the loss of his family, who finds companionship in Claire Arlington, a determined athlete and one of the few women to survive. Their bond is tested when Martin learns that his wife Helen and their two children, whom he believed dead, have survived.
Beyond its tale of survival and tangled relationships, Deluge is a meditation on the collapse of industrial civilization and what might rise from its ruins. Wright condemns the mechanized world for blinding humanity to the simple beauty and balance of life, writing, “Men substituted the dead smoke for the living light, the dead steel for the living hand, the dead steam for the living horse, fatuously believing that they progressed toward some higher plane of being than that which their Master had provided for them.” The flood becomes both punishment and purification, yet the society that emerges afterward is anything but ideal. It is a world of harsh necessity, where strength and possession define morality, and where the scarcity of women leads to a grim social order in which they are claimed or compelled to choose partners to avoid being taken by force.
Originally self-published by Wright, who had worked as an accountant, Deluge quickly gained attention and was reissued by the Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, becoming a bestseller in both Britain and the United States. Its influence can be felt in the later catastrophe novels of John Wyndham and John Christopher.
A 1933 Hollywood adaptation set in New York took great liberties with the source material but found commercial success and brought Wright wider recognition. Wright followed it with a sequel, Dawn (1929), though it never achieved the same impact. Deluge remains his most enduring and provocative work, a striking vision of destruction and renewal that questions whether humanity can ever truly begin again.
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