After catching up on Sinister Cinema‘s Armchair Fiction Lost World/Lost Race Classics series recently, they popped out four more, bringing the series up to 66 total.
Again, all the works are new to me. Only one appeared in the pulps, and most have never been reprinted since their original publication. Many also come from the U.K.
This next set of works is:
- #63 A Submarine Tour, by Frank Balch
- #64 Elnovia, by Geoffrey Faber
- #65 The Voice of Dashin, by Ganpat
- #66 Golden Isle, by Roland Ashford Philips
First up is A Submarine Tour by Frank Balch (1881–1937). This is a reprint of a U.S. book from 1905. I have no idea who the author is or if he wrote other works, and I’m not sure of the source of the cover. Similar in ways to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, our hero, a professor, is lost in the Arctic, only to be rescued by a super submarine run by a mysterious Captain Hake. He then embarks on a strange journey around the world.
Next, we have Geoffrey Faber (1889–1961) with Elnovia. This is a reprint of a U.K. book from 1925. There is an entry on Faber at Wikipedia, and he was an academic, publisher, and author, but this seems to be his only fantastical work, which was published by his own company. He was later knighted in the 1950s. Here, a group of aviators finds a strange floating land.
We get another work from Ganpat, actually Martin Louis Alan Gompertz (1886–1951), who was a British officer in India. His Ganpat pseudonym comes from the mispronunciation of his name; apparently, it should be pronounced “Gunput.” The cover of this volume comes from the dust jacket of the original book from 1927.
I hope we get more from him, especially the Sakaeland sequence of Harilek: A Romance (1923) and Wrexham’s Romance (1935). His works are described as being in the style of H. Rider Haggard, though most are set in the Himalayas. Some of his short fiction was reprinted in the pulps, but none of his novels.
Here, a pair of British soldiers helps a woman find her lost brother and niece, who are being held captive in a strange land in Tibet. They will find a mysterious group of Indo-Europeans, the People of the Hand, who worship an ancient, forgotten god. Will they succeed in rescuing them?
Finally, we have Golden Isle by Roland Ashford Philips (1884–1969), who was a fairly prolific pulp author from 1902 to 1947. Golden Isle seems to be his only fantastic work, first appearing as a serial in Top-Notch Magazine in 1916 and then reprinted by Street & Smith’s Chelsea House in 1925.
The cover used here is from People’s in 1916, where it was used to feature John Solomon, Argonaut. A man searching for treasure stumbles upon a yacht that is actually a super submarine. He then embarks on a voyage to a lost super-science island, along with a treasure search. Will they be successful?
Another nice group of additions to this series. I’m not sure when we’ll get more or what we’ll get. I have noted in this and past postings other works I think would be nice additions to this series. Again, check these out and take advantage of the publisher’s special sales as well.
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