- A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder
Infobox Book |
name = A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder
title_orig =
translator =
image_caption = Cover of "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder"
author =James De Mille
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country =United States
language = English
series =
genre =Fantasy novel
publisher =Harper & Brothers
release_date = 1888
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = 291 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by ="A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder" is the most popular book by
James De Mille . It was serialized posthumously and anonymously [ [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=39065] "Dictionary of Canadian Biography"] in "Harper's Weekly ", and published in book form by Harper and Brothers ofNew York City in 1888. It was subsequently serialized in theUnited Kingdom andAustralia , and published in book form in the United Kingdom andCanada . Later editions were published from the plates of the Harper and Brothers first edition, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Plot summary
The satiric and fantastic romance is set in an imaginary semi-
tropical land inAntarctica inhabited byprehistoric monsters and a cult of death-worshipers. Begun many years before it was published, it recalls Edgar Allan Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket " and anticipates the exotic locale and fantasy-adventure elements of works byH. Rider Haggard such as "She" and "King Solomon's Mines ", andArthur Conan Doyle 's "The Lost World", as well as innumerable prehistoric world movies based loosely on these and other works. The title and locale were inspired byEdgar Allan Poe 's "Ms. Found in a Bottle".The main story of the novel is the narrative of the adventures of Adam More, a British sailor shipwrecked on the homeward voyage from
Tasmania . After passing through a subterranean tunnel ofvolcanic origin, he finds himself in a "lost world" of prehistoric animals, plants and people sustained by volcanic heat despite the long Antarctic night.A secondary plot about the four
yacht smen who find themanuscript written by Adam More and sealed in acopper cylinder forms a frame for the central narrative.In his strange volcanic world, More also finds a highly developed human society which in the tradition of topsy-turvy worlds of
folklore andsatire (compareSir Thomas More 's "Utopia", "Erewhon " by Samuel Butler, orCharlotte Perkins Gilman 's "Herland") has reversed the values of Victorian society: wealth is scorned and poverty is revered, death and darkness are preferred to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible. Whatever they fail to give away to the abject rich is confiscated by the government, which imposes the burden of wealth upon its unfortunate subjects at the beginning of the next year ofreverse taxation as a form of punishment.It was unfortunate for De Mille's reputation as a writer that this work, his best, was published after "She" and "King Solomon's Mines", for although Haggard's works were well-known by then, the actual composition of De Mille's romance pre-dated the publication of the popular romances and his ideas were not in the least derivative from Haggard's better known works.
References
A scholarly edition of the work was published by the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) (see below). This edition is the source of the information provided by this article.
*cite book | last=Bleiler | first=Everett | authorlink=Everett F. Bleiler | title=The Checklist of Fantastic Literature | location=Chicago | publisher=Shasta Publishers | pages=27 | date=1948Bibliography
*"A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder" was first published in nineteen installments in "Harper's Weekly", Vol. 32, from January 7, 1888 (No. 1620) to May 12, 1888 (No. 1638). Each installment was accompanied by an illustration by Gilbert Gaul.
*De Mille, James. "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder". First American Edition. Harper and Brothers, New York, 1888.
*De Mille, James. "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder". First British Edition. Chatto and Windus, London, 1888.
*De Mille, James. "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder". First Canadian Edition. Robinson, Montreal, 1888.
*De Mille, James. "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder". New Canadian Library Edition. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1969.
*De Mille, James. "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder". Edited by Malcolm Parks. Carleton University Press, Ottawa, 1986. ISBN 0-88629-039-2 (hardcover), ISBN 0-7735-2167-4 (paperback)External links
* [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=39065 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
*gutenberg|no=6709|name=A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder
* [http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/strgmenu.htm The book as serialized in "Harper's Weekly" in 1888]
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