Author: NISBET, Hume.
Title: A Dream of Freedom, romance of South America.
Description: London, F.V. White 1902. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in ochre, white and black; xii,318pp, frontispiece. Some minor browning and signs of use but rather a good copy. Tipped in the front opening is an original photo of Nisbet dated 1901 and a notice of this book. ¶ Only edition and rare. And rare in more than one sense. It is the only novel that I know of set in the William Lane led utopia of New Australia and Cosme in Paraguay; in fact it is one of very few contemporary books on the settlement (the only other that I know of is the vitriolic 'Where Socialism Failed'; 1912). Likewise it is one of very few novels set in an actual utopia - or at least an attempt at one. Nisbet's preface is a mildly petulant jab at his critics and sounds a weary note about having written more than forty novels without repeating himself. As his first novel (set in New Guinea) appeared only 14 years earlier it's a not unimpressive achievement on some level. The author of the newspaper notice inserted at the front was alarmed at the implied threat that this could be his last novel and must have been relieved as more novels appeared later the same year. But there weren't many more novels - and they petered out in 1905. In the same month (January 1902) that the freshly widowed Nisbet dates his preface he married a 73 year old widow - 20 years his senior. I wonder whether he was writing with the exhaustion of a new burden undertaken or the release from financial strain.

Keywords: literature fiction utopia South America Australia c19th c20th New Australia Cosme William Lane