The Drowned World

Dent and Sons, London, 1992. 3rd trade paperback printing. Condition: Very good plus, light edge and corner wear, light soiling on white part of rear cover, price sticker on rear cover.

First published in 1962, J.G. Ballard's mesmerizing and ferociously prescient novel imagines a terrifying future in which solar radiation and global warming have melted the polar ice caps and Triassic-era jungles have overrun a submerged and tropical London.

Set during the year 2145, the novel follows biologist Dr. Robert Kerans and his team of scientists as they confront a surreal city-scape populated by giant iguanas, albino alligators, and endless swarms of malarial insects. Nature has swallowed all but a few remnants of human civilization, and, slowly, Kerans and his companions are transformed—both physically and psychologically—by this prehistoric environment.

Echoing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness—complete with a mad white hunter and his hordes of native soldiers—this "powerful and beautifully clear" (Brian Aldiss) work becomes a thrilling adventure and a haunting examination of the effects of environmental collapse on the human mind.