PARIS DEPUIS SES ORIGINES JUSQU'EN L'AN 3000

Paris: Charavay Frères et Cie, 1886. Near fine.. First edition of this sweeping history of Paris, from Gallo-Roman Lutèce to the imagined future of 1987 - featuring transmission screens and flying swan-boats, the latter depicted in a stellar full-page image by Robida. Claretie's engaging urban history follows real events more or less faithfully for the first 21 centuries of Paris's existence as a major human settlement, finally bringing his readers up to the nineteenth-century modern day with the observation that nothing is surprising in the modern world; science outstrips imagination and utopias do become realities. "Jusqu'où irons-nous?" he asks, and answers himself in the final chapters.

In 1987, when one wishes to visit Buenos Aires, one simply summons flying bird-boats: propeller-tailed "cygnes, ces canards gigantesques, ces aigles monumentaux, ces grues obeliscales, ces pyramidales autruches" (illustrated in-text). In 1987, live theater is dead, for every home possesses a certain televisual apparatus which displays on a screen whatever a family wishes to watch. After such heights of civilization, the city must fall to ruin; by the fourth millennium; lizards will bask on the altars of Notre Dame, and only the archaeologists remember Paris-that was.

A appealingly labyrinthine work with speculative fiction from Belle Époque Paris. 11'' x 7.5''. Contemporary in three-quarter red goatskin with red marbled boards and gilt-lettered spine, raised bands (signed "P.L."). Top edge gilt, marbled endpapers. Illustrated with 200 drawings in-text by P. Kauffman and 11 plates by F. Calmettes, L. Glaize, E. Grasset, Kammerer Leloir Père, Rejchan, and Robida. 364, [2] pages. Minor wear to extremities. Slight chipping and small closed tear to front free endpaper, slightly shaken. Clean.