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A Voyage to Arcturus — cover
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Aeneas Press edition 20th Century

A Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay 1876–1945

The book, and the century it came out of.

A man attends a séance in a Hampstead drawing room and by the next chapter is on a planet under a double sun, where every landscape strips away another consolation. Lindsay sold fewer than six hundred copies in his lifetime and died believing he had failed; C. S. Lewis took the machinery for his own space trilogy, and Harold Bloom called this the book he most wished he had written. Illustrated with 41 full-page plates — paintings by Musin, van Gogh and Barraud among them.

On a March evening, at eight o’clock, Backhouse, the medium—a fast-rising star in the psychic world—was ushered into the study at Prolands, the Hampstead residence of Montague Faull.
The first sentence of A Voyage to Arcturus
A note on this edition

A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 288 pages
Reading time
about 6 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486014239
The plates

41 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

Starry Night Over the Rhone, Vincent van Gogh
Starry Night Over the Rhone Vincent van Gogh 1888
Nearing the Needles, Henry Moore
Nearing the Needles Henry Moore 1888
Echo, Theodor Kittelsen
Echo Theodor Kittelsen 1888
Field naturalists, Jane Sutherland
Field naturalists Jane Sutherland
Antique Effigy, Enric Serra Auqué
Antique Effigy Enric Serra Auqué 1885
Unter den Linden after the Rain, Lesser Ury
Unter den Linden after the Rain Lesser Ury 1888
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of A Voyage to Arcturus as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of A Voyage to Arcturus as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

A Voyage to Arcturus, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Science Fiction shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486014239, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of A Voyage to Arcturus?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. David Lindsay's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 288 pages, which is roughly about 6 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
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A Voyage to Arcturus
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