8vo. 33pp. publisher’s advertisements at end [Currey first form with p.1 headed The Maxman, priority not established]. Original pictorial tan cloth [Currey binding A, priority established], stamped in red and black (mild darkening to spine, some toning, leaning to spine).

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE with Currey's (A) binding with monogram on rear board and 33pp. catalogue at end. The Island of Doctor Moreau was inspired in part by the 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde, who Wilde felt was unfairly persecuted for acting on his own innate desires. He would later write, "[The Island of Doctor Moreau] was the response of an imaginative mind to the reminder that humanity is but animal rough-hewn to a reasonable shape and in perpetual internal conflict between instinct and injunction. This story embodies this ideal, but apart from this embodiment it has no allegorical quality." Hammond B3; Currey p. 520; Wells 8.