DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 4, December 1944

Transcribe
Translate

Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 4, December 1944

Page 53

FANTASY COMMENTATOR
53

Shakespeare's plays, have expressed astonishment at and admiration for the immensity of Mr. Donnelly's work."

Any reader of The Great Cryptogram will be impressed not only with the immensity of the work Donnelly had to do to "prove" his theory, but also with the uncanny way in which he applied a seemingly immutable cipher to the Bard's works, and came out with the right answer. It has to be seen to be believed at all.

Donnelly turned to the lecture platforms again, then toured England, and returned to Minnesota to write his first novel, Caesar's Column: a story of the Twentieth Century. This was fiction of the utopian school. In it the author foresaw dirigibles with aluminum bodies, poison gas, television, and other horrors that have since come to pass. It sold 60,000 copies in its first year (1891), and since then its sales may well have reached a million copies.

Politics now interfered with Donnelly's literary work. He was twice defeated for Congress, but he did pretty well at home, where he headed the powerful Farmers Alliance and soon led it into the Populist party, of which he has been called the father. For the next few years he whooped up the Populists under their various party names of Greenbackers, People's and Anti-Monopolists. He wrote the sonorous and celebrated Omaha platform of 1892; was nominated for various offices, including that of Vice President of the United States. He lost each time, but never went sour.

At home he played the part of the Sage of Nininger and enjoyed it hugely. Left a widower in his sixties, he married a girl of 21. Although he was born a Catholic he never embraced that faith nor any other. Nor did he mind the terms applied to him, among them "Athiest," "Prince of Cranks," "Visionary," "Apostle of Unrest".

There were still a few more books left in him. In 1898 he turned out The People's Money, more propaganda than literature; but in 1889 he returned to letters with The Cipher in the Plays and on the Tombstone, a sort of extended footnote to The Great Cryptogram. And a bit later wrote another novel, Dr. Huget, which apparently made little noise and no money. Donnelly died in 1901, aged 70.

Donnelly has been various assessed by critics and social historians. As a reformer he was a typical product of the United States in the nineteenth century, one of the most brilliant of them all. James G. Blaine, a contemporary, rated Donnelly as a man of "prodigious intellect, quick insight and high purpose." As a writer he was anything but typical. Perhaps he was unique. Certainly few if any men have written so well on so many subjects. Nininger City has been ghostly since 1857, and the Populists have long since been forgotten, except by historians; but Donnelly would be pleased to know that the House of Harper will bring out another big printing of Atlantis just as soon as paper restrictions permit.

---oOo---

This-'n'-That---(continued from page 50)

seances and pure horror...and Once in Cornwall: Legends of Saints and Dragons, by Sister S.M.C. (Langmans, Green, $2) is a collection of fantasies written with "a charm that flickers through her prose like dancing feet"; those who enjoyed Harold Shea's adventures in The Incomplete Enchanter should not miss this shyer version of a similar mythology...August Derleth edits a fine collection of weird tales in Sleep No More! (Farrar & Rinehart, $2.50); nearly all of these are new to hard covers...and Arkham House's schedule calls for four titles, each priced at $3: The Eye and the Finger, twenty-one of Donald Wandrei's short stories; H. P. Lovecraft's Marginalia; Jumbee and other Uncanny Tales by Henry S. Whitehead; 

(concluded on page 68)

Saving...

FANTASY COMMENTATOR 53 Shakespeare's plays, have expressed astonishment at and admiration for the immensity of Mr. Donnelly's work." Any reader of The Great Cryptogram will be impressed not only with the immensity of the work Donnelly had to do to "prove" his theory, but also with the uncanny way in which he applied a seemingly immutable cipher to the Bard's works, and came out with the right answer. It has to be seen to be believed at all. Donnelly turned to the lecture platforms again, then toured England, and returned to Minnesota to write his first novel, Caesar's Column: a story of the Twentieth Century. This was fiction of the utopian school. In it the author foresaw dirigibles with aluminum bodies, poison gas, television, and other horrors that have since come to pass. It sold 60,000 copies in its first year (1891), and since then its sales may well have reached a million copies. Politics now interfered with Donnelly's literary work. He was twice defeated for Congress, but he did pretty well at home, where he headed the powerful Farmers Alliance and soon led it into the Populist party, of which he has been called the father. For the next few years he whooped up the Populists under their various party names of Greenbackers, People's and Anti-Monopolists. He wrote the sonorous and celebrated Omaha platform of 1892; was nominated for various offices, including that of Vice President of the United States. He lost each time, but never went sour. At home he played the part of the Sage of Nininger and enjoyed it hugely. Left a widower in his sixties, he married a girl of 21. Although he was born a Catholic he never embraced that faith nor any other. Nor did he mind the terms applied to him, among them "Athiest," "Prince of Cranks," "Visionary," "Apostle of Unrest". There were still a few more books left in him. In 1898 he turned out The People's Money, more propaganda than literature; but in 1889 he returned to letters with The Cipher in the Plays and on the Tombstone, a sort of extended footnote to The Great Cryptogram. And a bit later wrote another novel, Dr. Huget, which apparently made little noise and no money. Donnelly died in 1901, aged 70. Donnelly has been various assessed by critics and social historians. As a reformer he was a typical product of the United States in the nineteenth century, one of the most brilliant of them all. James G. Blaine, a contemporary, rated Donnelly as a man of "prodigious intellect, quick insight and high purpose." As a writer he was anything but typical. Perhaps he was unique. Certainly few if any men have written so well on so many subjects. Nininger City has been ghostly since 1857, and the Populists have long since been forgotten, except by historians; but Donnelly would be pleased to know that the House of Harper will bring out another big printing of Atlantis just as soon as paper restrictions permit. ---oOo--- This-'n'-That---(continued from page 50) seances and pure horror...and Once in Cornwall: Legends of Saints and Dragons, by Sister S.M.C. (Langmans, Green, $2) is a collection of fantasies written with "a charm that flickers through her prose like dancing feet"; those who enjoyed Harold Shea's adventures in The Incomplete Enchanter should not miss this shyer version of a similar mythology...August Derleth edits a fine collection of weird tales in Sleep No More! (Farrar & Rinehart, $2.50); nearly all of these are new to hard covers...and Arkham House's schedule calls for four titles, each priced at $3: The Eye and the Finger, twenty-one of Donald Wandrei's short stories; H. P. Lovecraft's Marginalia; Jumbee and other Uncanny Tales by Henry S. Whitehead; (concluded on page 68)