M P Shiel Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Rajah’s Sapphire (1886)
  2. The Yellow Danger (1898)
  3. Contraband of War (1899)
  4. The Lord of the Sea (1901)
  5. The Purple Cloud (1901)
  6. The Weird o’ It (1902)
  7. Unto the Third Generation (1903)
  8. The Evil that Men Do (1904)
  9. The Lost Viol (1905)
  10. The Last Miracle (1906)
  11. The White Wedding (1908)
  12. The Isle of Lies (1909)
  13. Children of the Wind (1923)
  14. How the Old Woman Got Home (1927)
  15. Dr Krasinski’s Secret (1929)
  16. The Black Box (1930)
  17. The Young Men Are Coming (1937)
  18. Prince Zaliski (1967)
  19. The New King (1983)

Collections

  1. Prince Zaleski (1895)
  2. Shapes in the Fire (1896)
  3. The Pale Ape and Other Pulses (1911)
  4. The Invisible Voices (1935)
  5. Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk (1977)
  6. The Works of M. P. Shiel (1979)
  7. Works (1980)
  8. Xelucha and The Primate of the Rose (1994)

Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

M P Shiel Books Overview

The Yellow Danger

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.

The Lord of the Sea

Matthew Phipps Shiel 1865 1947, was a prolific British writer of fantastic fiction, remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances, published as novels, short stories and as serials. He wrote under the pen name Gordon Holmes. After working as a teacher and translator he broke into the fiction market with a series of short stories published in The Strand and other magazines. His early literary reputation was based on two collections of short stories influenced by Poe published in the Keynote series by John Lane, Prince Zaleski 1895 and Shapes in the Fire 1896, considered by some critics as the most flamboyant of the English decadent movement. His first novel was The Rajah’s Sapphire 1896, based on a plot by William Thomas Stead, who probably hired Shiel to write the novel. Shiel’s lasting literary reputation is largely based on Notebook III of the series which was serialized in The Royal Magazine in abridged form before book publication that autumn as The Purple Cloud 1901. He also wrote The Lord of the Sea 1901.

The Purple Cloud

Matthew Phipps Shiel 1865 1947, was a prolific British writer of fantastic fiction, remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances, published as novels, short stories and as serials. He wrote under the pen name Gordon Holmes. After working as a teacher and translator he broke into the fiction market with a series of short stories published in The Strand and other magazines. His early literary reputation was based on two collections of short stories influenced by Poe published in the Keynote series by John Lane, Prince Zaleski 1895 and Shapes in the Fire 1896, considered by some critics as the most flamboyant of the English decadent movement. His first novel was The Rajah’s Sapphire 1896, based on a plot by William Thomas Stead, who probably hired Shiel to write the novel. Shiel’s lasting literary reputation is largely based on Notebook III of the series which was serialized in The Royal Magazine in abridged form before book publication that autumn as The Purple Cloud 1901. He also wrote The Lord of the Sea 1901.

The Last Miracle

The Last Miracle TOWARDS the end of May 1900 the writer received as noteworthy a letter and packet of papers as it has been his lot to examine. They came from a good friend of mine, a Dr A. ister Browne, hI.A. Oxon., F.R.C.P., whom, as it happened that for some years I had been living mostly in France, and robne being in Norfolk, I had not seen during my visits to London. Moreover, as we were both bad correspondents, only three notes had passed between us in the course of those years. But in the May of 1900 there reached me the letter-and the packet-to which I refer, the packet consisting of four note-books full of shorthand, the letter also pencilled in shorthand, and this letter, together with the note-book marked 1 now publish. The note-book marked 11. has already appeared under the title of The Lord of the Sea, and that marked 111. under the title of The Purple Cloud, each in three languages while that marked IV. has been judged unsuitable to publication. The following is Brownes letter — The Last Miracle DEAR OLD NAN,-I have been thinking of you, wishing that you were here to give me a last squeeze of the hand before I-go. Four days ago I felt a soreness in the throat, so in passing by old Johnsons burgery at Selbridge, I asked him to have a look at me. He muttered some- thing about membranous laryngitis which made me smile but by the time I reached home I was ho*arse, and not smiling before night I had stridor. I at once telegraphed to London for Horsford, and he and Johnson have been opening my inside and burning it with the cautery, so I am breathing easier now, and it is wonderful how little I suffer but I am too old a hand not to know whats what the bronchi are involved-too lar, and, as a matter of fact, there isnt any hope. Horsford is still fondly hoping to add me to his successful-tracheotomy statistics but I have bet him not, and the consolation of my death will bc the beating of a specialist in his own line. I have been arranging some of my affairs, and remembered these note-books which I intended letting you have long ago but you know my habit of putting things off, and, moreover, the lady was alive from whose mouth I took down the words. She is now dead, and, as a man of books, you should bc intcrcsted, if you can manage to read them. I am under a little morphia at present, propped up in a nice little state of languor…

.

The White Wedding

The White Wedding SHANS THE MAN ARTHUR GORDRIDG th E e , young master of Glanncourt, just getting better of a sickness that had brought him home from his regimental district, lay on a sofa during the forenoon of that 18th of September 1899 whose Timer on the floor at his feet was furious with the news that President Kruger had refused to accept any of our propositions made to him on the eighth of the month but even these growlings of the outbreak now near could not too greatly jingoize Gordridges mind that morning, and his pile of papers having slipped off the sofa, his looks hankered towards the door. Presently when the door opened his eye brightened but the young lady who came in was not the one whom he longed to see. How are you this morning, Arthur she asked. I The White Wedding Well, I think I begin now to feel some life in me again, thanks, Anne, he answered. Aunt Margaret asks you how you are, and whether there will be war. Well, I suppose there will be war it will be intolerable if there is not after the insolence of these little farmer people. I wonder if you will have to go to fight Not very likely. c c But if your company goes…
. 9 2 Even in that case…
. I am on the sick list, Anne. But youll soon be better, and having no special temptation to stay…
2 3 Dont worry, Anne, just mention to mother what I say…
Why, by the way, doesnt somebody remove this tray from my side You might have rung…
1 11 take it. As you like. Or would you prefer that Rosie By the way, talking of Rosie, have you heard about her You have been so much abroad, and so chippy since you came, that I dare say you know precious little about us others here, really. But perhaps you are not much interested in your mothers pant in, Arthur…

Prince Zaleski

Prince Zaleski, an exiled Russian nobleman, inhabits a half ruined abbey in Wales, where he spends most of his time smoking cannabis and opium, reading from his library of medieval books, or admiring his collection of rare curios dating from ancient antiquity. His retirement from the world is occasionally interrupted by his friend Shiel, who comes to seek Zaleski’s help in solving mysteries that have baffled the greatest minds in Britain. In ‘The Race of Orven,’ Zaleski must unravel a case involving a burglary, a murder, a floating phantasm, and three severed fingers. In ‘The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks,’ the prince races against time to solve the mystery of a jewel from the Crusades that may cause a man’s death. And in the final story in the collection, ‘The S.S.,’ an inexplicable wave of thousands of apparent suicides puts Zaleski to the ultimate test and leads to a deeply disturbing conclusion. Originally appearing in 1895 as the seventh entry in John Lane’s provocative Keynotes series, Prince Zaleski incorporated two of the popular trends in 1890s literature: Decadence and detective stories. Influenced by Poe, Huysmans, and Wilde, Shiel’s Decadent detective remains one of the most intriguing creations of fin de si cle British fiction. This edition includes the unabridged text of the original edition and features a new introduction by Paul Fox.

Shapes in the Fire

August Derleth said M.P. Shiel was ‘…
the Grand Viscount of the Grotesque…
with a refulgently fanciful imagination and magical command of the English language.’ Arthur Machen said, ‘Here is a wilder wonderland than Poe ever dreamt of…
It is Poe, perhaps, but Poe with an unearthly radiance.’ Shapes in the Fire is an extraordinary collection of Shiel’s work: don’t miss it.

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