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Available as single volumes or as a complete set, this collection
traces the evolution of a literary genre: the British speculative
future war novel. Taking science fiction from the 1890s, this set
explores the various ways in which the science fiction tradition
can be interpreted.
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The Purple Cloud (Paperback)
M. P. Shiel; Edited by John Sutherland
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R314
R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
Save R57 (18%)
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Dark, desolate and fantastical, The Purple Cloud was a pioneer in
the genre of apocalyptic novels, and the first great science
fiction work of the twentieth century. It inspired authors such as
H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. The Purple Cloud tells the
grandly bleak story of Adam Jeffson: the first man to reach the
North Pole and the last man left alive on earth. A sweet-smelling,
deadly cloud of poisonous gas has devastated the world, and as
Jeffson travels the stricken globe in search of human life, he
slowly succumbs to madness, and unleashes fire and destruction on
his planet. John Sutherland's introduction discusses M. P. Shiel's
dissolute life, the originality of his book and its place within
the context of 'last man' novels. This edition also includes a
chronology, notes and further reading.
This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.
"If now a swell from the Deep has swept over this planetary ship of
earth, and I, who alone chanced to find myself in the furthest
stern, as the sole survivor of her crew...What then, my God, shall
I do?". The Purple Cloud is widely hailed as a masterpiece of
science fiction and one of the best "last man" novels ever written.
A deadly purple vapor passes over the world and annihilates all
living creatures except one man, Adam Jeffson. He embarks on an
epic journey across a silent and devastated planet, an apocalyptic
Robinson Crusoe putting together the semblance of a normal life
from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence. As he descends
into madness over the years, he becomes increasingly aware that his
survival was no accident and that his destiny - and the fate of the
human race - are part of a profound, cosmological plan.
Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865-1947) was a prolific British writer of
West Indian descent, best known for supernatural and scientific
romances. The Purple Cloud remains his most famous and often
reprinted novel.
This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.
M. P. Shiel died in 1947, but his dark imagination continues to
influence writers and readers of weird and supernatural fiction
today. These twelve stories demonstrate his talent for descriptive
prose and the breadth of his vivid imagination. Shiel well deserves
a place among the best of the early weird fiction writers. The
stories included in this collection are Huguenin's Wife, The
Spectre-Ship, Tulsah, Vaila, Xelucha, The Bride, A Shot at the Sun,
The Bell of St. Sepulcre, The Great King, The Pale Ape, Dark Lot of
One Saul, and The Place of Pain.
See now a shocking scrimmage, a rush and crush for precedence,
surge upon surge of men jostling each other in a struggle to get
near him, sticks reaching awkwardly over heads to inflict far
forceless blows, and on his face the fists; a hundred roaring
"Order ," fighting against the tide; three hundred shrieking, "Kill
him " "Have him done with " "Dash out his brains ," and pressing to
that job. Sergeant-at-Arms, meanwhile, Clerk-attending-the-Table,
and the physician, had run to give the alarm; but it was by one of
those miracles of wild minutes, when turbulent sprites appear to
mix themselves in the business of men, worse....
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