ADAM, Paul Auguste Marie.
Lettres de Malaisie.
Paris, Editions de la Revue Blanche, 1898.
Octavo, some browning, uncut; a good copy in publisher's blue quarter cloth.
First issue of the first edition of Adam's most important work. Lettres de Malaisie had appeared as a serial in ten issues of the journal La Revue Blanche (November 1896 to August 1897). It was then published in book form as here, and reprinted in 1900, both editions with a four-page introduction by Adam. In fact the book was issued at least five times in 1898 (each with minor corrections), all but the first issue having the edition number printed below the title. This copy is an example of the first issue of 1898 with no edition number stated. Another edition with an additional eight-page preface by Adam was issued in 1908 with the main title La Cité Prochaine, subtitled 'Lettres de Malaisie'. This edition was reprinted in 1922 by Georges Crès & Co. under the original main title and with the addition of woodcut illustrations by Maurice de Becque. A very scarce Czech translation, Listy z Malajska: román, was published in 1905. The book has twice been reprinted in more recent years (1981 & 1996). We thank Raymond Howgego for information summarised here.
Adam (1862-1920) declared that he wrote this novel set in the East Indies as an extension of the earlier work of French utopian writers, but it also shows an awareness of realized societies in Texas and Illinois. It is an account of the fictional 'Adam's Country', a colony established by a dedicated community of French settlers, marked by ostentatious comfort and extreme xenophobia. Despite its humble beginnings, the settlement has quickly come to dominate the local tribes, pressing them into unquestioning obedience to the State.
Like so many ideal societies, its continuing harmony is due to oppressive social controls: the sterilisation of asocials; the State control of artists; the enlistment of criminals into the Army. Even the advances in science (which include a pre-Edison description of the phonograph) are usually dedicated to the active or passive control of the population. This fascination with observation and control extends to descriptions of some of the scientific experiments being conducted on the native population, including the most infamous, where the inhabitants are 'rehabilitated through satiety in weekly public orgies in which the 'communism of erotic sensations' results in the successful neutralization of sexuality' (Frédéric Rouvillois, 'Utopia and Totalitarianism,' in Schaer et al., Utopia).
Lewis, p. 1; Manguel & Guadalupi; Negley, p. 3.
