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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 5, Winter 1944-1945
Page 71
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Hidden Horizons by Thyril L. Ladd I have always been particulary fascinated by the story of a lost na-tion, or a hidden people---the concept of some race, which, unknown to the world, has dwelt perhaps for centuries in a forgotten valley or high upon some inaces-sible plateau. Many times I have read far into the night, eagerly following the adventuresome pages in books of this type. Volumes dealing with such themes as these obviously must number in the hundreds, but I can speak only for such as it has been my good fortune to acquire; and it may well be by mention of those that I own that I shall be able, in a small way, to open for other readers vistas of bizarre adventure. A story which has always been one of my prime favorites is The Gates of Kamt (1907) by Baroness Orczy, whose English title is By the Gods Beloved. My copy of this volume is beautifully illustrated in color throughout. Here, in a cliff-ringed valley surrounded by nearly impassable desert, a pair of young Eng-lishmen find an Egyptian race, still living exactly as in ancient times, amid all the great edifices for which their mother-country was noted, and with a pha-raoh---wearing the famous double linen crown---seated on the throne. In another book, whose locale is an unidentified part of Tibet, adventurers discover a great castle wherein stand exact statued replicas of the gods of ancient Egypt, each bedecked with jewels. Here an olden Egyptian race has lived for centuries since the people fled from barbarian hordes which overran their native country; and here too reigns a pharaoh, waiting for the time when he will return to claim his throne on the Nile. The treasures of this race are guarded by half-human, half-slug monstrosities known as Things That Run. Such is the fascinating tale to be found in The Glory of Egypt (1926), by one Louis Koresby, who really is Mrs. L. Adams Beck---an authoress who also uses the pseudonym E. Barrington. There is Aubrey's Devil Tree of El Dorado (1896), a tale of a lost na-tion on a plateau in Venezuela, whose people employ a man-eating tree for their executions. This novel, incidentally, was written originally as a sequel to The Queen of Atlantis (1899), despite the fact that the latter volume was not pub-lished until three years later. "Frank Aubrey," by the way, is also a pseudonym---the author's real name is Frank Atkins. Under his nom de plume he has also written The King of the Dead: a Weird Story (1903), which I have not as yet been lucky enough to add to my collection. James de Mille's Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (1888) tells of the lone survivor of a wreck who floats into sub-Arctic seas, there to come upon a region warmed by volcanic action where dwells a strange, somber race; its members (at religious functions only) are cannibals, and they use huge birds as steeds of the sky. In By the World Forgot (1917) of Cyrus Townsend Brady a young castaway finds a race of white people on a far south sea isle, these obviously being descendants of some ancient shipwreck. A. Conan Doyle's Lost World (1912) concerns a high South American plateau, surrounded by jungle, on which still exist dinosaurs and cavemen. This novel has gone through many editions both here and in Britain, but the original printing, with its copious illustrations, is by far to be preferred. Somewhat similar in theme is Faw-cett's Trapped by an Earthquake (1906), where adventurers are cast into a sub-terranean world which is discovered to be peopled with dinosaurs and cavemen. And Romance Island (1906), shows Zona Gale portraying a strange race whose un-derstanding of the fourth dimension has enabled them to hide their island home from the rest of the world for generations, a land where the change of old age can be induced by a draught of strange wine...
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Hidden Horizons by Thyril L. Ladd I have always been particulary fascinated by the story of a lost na-tion, or a hidden people---the concept of some race, which, unknown to the world, has dwelt perhaps for centuries in a forgotten valley or high upon some inaces-sible plateau. Many times I have read far into the night, eagerly following the adventuresome pages in books of this type. Volumes dealing with such themes as these obviously must number in the hundreds, but I can speak only for such as it has been my good fortune to acquire; and it may well be by mention of those that I own that I shall be able, in a small way, to open for other readers vistas of bizarre adventure. A story which has always been one of my prime favorites is The Gates of Kamt (1907) by Baroness Orczy, whose English title is By the Gods Beloved. My copy of this volume is beautifully illustrated in color throughout. Here, in a cliff-ringed valley surrounded by nearly impassable desert, a pair of young Eng-lishmen find an Egyptian race, still living exactly as in ancient times, amid all the great edifices for which their mother-country was noted, and with a pha-raoh---wearing the famous double linen crown---seated on the throne. In another book, whose locale is an unidentified part of Tibet, adventurers discover a great castle wherein stand exact statued replicas of the gods of ancient Egypt, each bedecked with jewels. Here an olden Egyptian race has lived for centuries since the people fled from barbarian hordes which overran their native country; and here too reigns a pharaoh, waiting for the time when he will return to claim his throne on the Nile. The treasures of this race are guarded by half-human, half-slug monstrosities known as Things That Run. Such is the fascinating tale to be found in The Glory of Egypt (1926), by one Louis Koresby, who really is Mrs. L. Adams Beck---an authoress who also uses the pseudonym E. Barrington. There is Aubrey's Devil Tree of El Dorado (1896), a tale of a lost na-tion on a plateau in Venezuela, whose people employ a man-eating tree for their executions. This novel, incidentally, was written originally as a sequel to The Queen of Atlantis (1899), despite the fact that the latter volume was not pub-lished until three years later. "Frank Aubrey," by the way, is also a pseudonym---the author's real name is Frank Atkins. Under his nom de plume he has also written The King of the Dead: a Weird Story (1903), which I have not as yet been lucky enough to add to my collection. James de Mille's Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (1888) tells of the lone survivor of a wreck who floats into sub-Arctic seas, there to come upon a region warmed by volcanic action where dwells a strange, somber race; its members (at religious functions only) are cannibals, and they use huge birds as steeds of the sky. In By the World Forgot (1917) of Cyrus Townsend Brady a young castaway finds a race of white people on a far south sea isle, these obviously being descendants of some ancient shipwreck. A. Conan Doyle's Lost World (1912) concerns a high South American plateau, surrounded by jungle, on which still exist dinosaurs and cavemen. This novel has gone through many editions both here and in Britain, but the original printing, with its copious illustrations, is by far to be preferred. Somewhat similar in theme is Faw-cett's Trapped by an Earthquake (1906), where adventurers are cast into a sub-terranean world which is discovered to be peopled with dinosaurs and cavemen. And Romance Island (1906), shows Zona Gale portraying a strange race whose un-derstanding of the fourth dimension has enabled them to hide their island home from the rest of the world for generations, a land where the change of old age can be induced by a draught of strange wine...
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