Louis-Guillaume de Lafolie (or Follie or La Folie). Le Philosophe sans pretention, ou l'Homme Rare. Ouvrage physique, chymique, politique et moral, Dedie aux Savans. (FIRST EDITION - 1775)

Paris: Chez Clousier, 1775.
FIRST EDITION. 1 volume, 349pp., with the engraved frontis, engraved title-vignette and headpiece. Bound in contemporary full patterened calf, gilt decorated spine, covers ruled in gilt, gilt lettered red morocco spine label, hinges cracked but covers firmly attached, occasional minor foxing, overall a VERY GOOD copy.
The famous utopian novel & famous science fiction tale which describes a visitor from Mercury to Earth in an electrical flying machine.
La Folie uses this main character, Ormaris, to discuss the author's own theories on physics, electricity, geology, and chemistry.
“In this book, a strange machine brings a visitor to earth from the planet Mercury. This fictional flying contraption is said to be powered by static electricity, produced when its two glass globes are rubbed with camphor covered with gold leaf as they turn on a platform. The powerful light changed the pressure of the air and enabled the alien operator to navigate. La Follie’s electric motor is probably based on the fictional machines of his time, which generated small electrical charges” (Library of Congress, The Dream of Flight Exhibit)
La Follie (or La Folie: 17-39-1780), a chemist and merchant, is known for discovering the yellow dye extracted from gaude (dyer’s weed) and this imaginative novel – the “Philosopher without Pretension” – which was his only publication.
Roller-Goodman II, 64; Cole 736; Brug 102; Cioranescu 35673; Mohler & Nicolson, “The First Electrical Flying Machine” in Essays in Honour of W. Neilson (1939), pp143-158.