GLÄSERNE BIENEN de Jünger, Ernst (Ernst Juenger) - 1957

Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1957. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 7-180, stiff wrappers with printed paper overlay. First edition, first printing. A short allegorical novel about the creation and use of robot bees to gather honey. An important German negative utopian work that examines the catastrophic consequences of technology. "The novel deals with the historical transition between monarchy and modern industrial society ... Jünger perceives the new age as a violation of the integrity of the individual ... Technology overcomes no shortages, promotes no prosperity, it exists for its own sake ... [the utopia's] negativity arises out of the fact that it determines catastrophe to be the outer limit of utopian development." - Fortunati and Trousson (eds), Dictionary of Literary Utopias, pp. 244-5. Translated into English by Louise Bogan and Elizabeth Mayer as THE GLASS BEES (1960). Lewis, Utopian Literature, pp. 104-05. Cover a bit dusty, a nearly fine copy. (#140762)