HILDRETH, Charles Lotin “The Mysterious City of Oo” [Belford, Clarke & Co., 1880]

CHARLES LOTIN HILDRETH The Mysterious City of Oo; or, Adventures in Orbello Land.

Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1880. First edition. 8" x 5.75", 360pp. Profusely illustrated throughout with full-page and in-text engravings. Publisher’s pictorial tan cloth stamped in black and gilt, patterned endpapers. Front hinge cracked, rear hinge starting; rubbing and moderate wear to extremities, including fraying at spine ends and corners; text block sound, illustrations clean. Good+.

Adventure novel combining lost-world fiction, maritime peril, and exotic fantasy travel in the late nineteenth-century juvenile tradition. The elaborate pictorial binding — featuring armed figures, tropical imagery, and the titular “City of Oo” — reflects the period’s growing fascination with imaginative exploration narratives in the wake of Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard. The story follows a sequence of voyages, disappearances, hidden territories, and encounters in the fictional “Orbello Land,” illustrated throughout with dramatic engraved scenes of storms, exploration, and conflict. An unusually striking Victorian publisher’s binding design, with substantial visual appeal on the shelf.