George Griffith

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George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones (born August 20, 1857 in Plymouth ; died June 4, 1906 in Port Erin , Isle of Man ) was a British science fiction writer, journalist, explorer and world traveler.

Life

George Chetwynd Jones was the son of clergyman George Alfred Jones and Jeanette Henry, née Capinster. In 1861 the family moved to Ashton-under-Lyne , near Manchester . He did not go to school but was taught by his father. After his death in 1872 he was sent to a private school in nearby Southport , where he stayed only 15 months. He then signed on to a merchant ship and began to travel the world as a seaman. In 1877 he returned to England and began teaching at a private school in Worthing on the south coast and later in Lancashire at the Grammar School in Bolton . During this time he published two volumes of poems under the pseudonym Lara - Poems General, Secular, and Satirical (1883) and The Dying Faith (1884) - some of which had previously been reprinted in the Secular Review , a free-thinker magazine. In 1887 he earned a diploma from the College of Preceptors , a certificate of proficiency as a school teacher. In the same year he married Elizabeth Brierly.

The couple moved to London in 1888 and Jones began working as a journalist for a newspaper, which soon went bankrupt, leading to significant financial problems. However, Jones eventually managed to find work with Cyril Arthur Pearson , who founded Pearson's Weekly in 1890 and for whom Jones initially addressed covers. But soon he was writing articles for Pearson's Weekly and Pearson's Magazine under the names of George Griffith and Levin Carnac . The breakthrough came with the science fiction The Angel of the Revolution , which was reprinted in sequels from January 21 to October 14, 1893 in Pearson's Weekly . In 1894 Jones changed his legal name to George Chetwynd Griffith.

As a contributor to Pearson's Weekly (1890–1899) and Pearson's Magazine (1896–1903) Griffith began extensive travels that took him twice around the world, once across the Rocky Mountains , three times across the Andes and three times around Cape Horn . During his travels he also explored the headwaters of the Amazon and took a balloon flight to France. The experiences of the two world trips undertaken on behalf of Pearson appeared in sequels and in book form as Round the World in 76 Days (1890) and How I Broke the Record Round the World (1894). Already on the first trip, with a journey time of 76 days, he was faster than Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg in a trip around the world in 80 days , and Griffith only needed 65 days for the second trip around the world. In 1903 he reported for the London Daily Mail from South Africa, where the Boer War had ended in 1902 . A future war between the British and Boers was already the background of his 1897 novel Briton or Boer? A Tale of the Fight for Africa .

From 1897 Griffith saw himself at Pearson increasingly displaced by the now well-known, literarily talented HG Wells . In 1899 Griffith moved to Littlehampton in West Sussex and made another trip to Australia, where he wrote A Honeymoon in Space , his most famous work alongside The Angel of the Revolution . In 1904 his health began to deteriorate and he moved to the Isle of Man for the milder climate , where he died of cirrhosis in 1906 .

Works and reception

His best-known work and first great success was The Angel of the Revolution (1893) and the almost equally successful sequel Olga Romanoff, or, The Syren of the Skies (1894). In it, an anarchist-terrorist group called Brotherhood of Freedom succeeds in using Aeronef , a revolutionary type of airship invented by protagonist Richard Arnold, to achieve global air sovereignty and to ban war worldwide. Both the British government, which is allied with Germany and is about to lose a war against an alliance of France and Russia, must submit to anarchist rule, as does the USA, whose government, controlled by reactionary capitalists, together with the capitalists, unceremoniously on the Aleutians is banished. In Russia, the despotism will end, the Tsar and his family will be sentenced to life-long forced labor in Siberian mines and land will become common property worldwide. The eponymous angel of the revolution is Natasha, daughter of Natas, a Russian Jew and leader of the Brotherhood of Freedom . A significant part of the story is devoted to the romance between Arnold and Natasha.

The sequel takes place in 2030. The Aerians , descendants of the Brotherhood of Freedom , have ruled the world for five generations and have become a master race endowed with special psychological powers. Olga Romanoff, descendant of the dethroned tsars - this is the revenge that the anarchists, unlike Lenin , did not eliminate the tsar and his family, but only deport them - comes into possession of two revolutionary inventions, namely the plans for a submarine and a drug, with which people can be turned into willless slaves. Olga, who is naturally very beautiful, makes two leading Aerians into slaves with the help of the drug. With their help, she steals two Aerians airships and starts building the super submarine Narwhal and an air fleet in a secret base in Antarctica . When it comes to the decisive battle between the Aerians and Olga, no decisive victory can be achieved. Instead, a comet that has just arrived destroys civilization through its impact. Olga dies, the Aerians survive the impact underground.

As for the portrayal of what was not European or entirely foreign at all, Griffith will offend on many points today. Bleiler called him “the embodiment of what was wrong with the Victorian worldview.” But Griffith's views were by no means unusual in their time, and his stereotypes and clichés reflected the contemporary consensus. This also includes a casual anti-Semitism , as it appears in the story A Photograph of the Invisible (1896), in which a certain Denton takes revenge on his ex-fiancée, who has so far forgotten herself, with the help of the X-rays that were just discovered at the time , to marry a wealthy German Jew named Goldberg (who then also falls victim to a strange disease).

Even if his works were almost forgotten for a long time and their literary value is assessed as rather low, he was just as successful in his time as HG Wells, his effect on contemporary authors should not be underestimated and Griffith also has some modern developments, for example in the Air war, credibly anticipated.

Recently, therefore, some of his books have been reissued or anthologized. His story A Corner in Lightning (1898), which deals with the catastrophic consequences of a future power failure in London - power supply began to play a significant role at all at this time - appeared in Sam Moskowitz 's anthology of Victorian science fiction as early as 1968 . The World Peril of 1910 was published in 2006, Around the World in 65 Days , a volume with collected travel stories , was published in 2008 , A Honeymoon in Space was published by Apogee in 2011 and Empire of the Air with The Angel of the Revolution and Olga Romanoff was published by Leonaur Press in 2009 . A German translation of A Honeymoon in Space from 1901 was reprinted in 2007.

bibliography

Series

Tsar Wars
  • 1 The Angel of the Revolution (1893, abridged edition 1893)
  • 2 Olga Romanoff, or, The Syren of the Skies (1894)
A honeymoon in space

First printed in six episodes January to June 1900 in Pearson's Magazine .

  • 1 A Visit to the Moon (1900)
  • 2 The World of the War God (1900, also called The World of the War Gods )
  • 3 A Glimpse of the Sinless Star (1900)
  • 4 The World of the Crystal Cities (1900)
  • 5 In Saturn's Realm (1900)
  • 6 Homeward Bound (1900)
  • A Honeymoon in Space (1901, books 1 to 6)
    • German: From other worlds: Report on the adventures that Johann Heinrich Fürst and his young wife experienced on their honeymoon in space. Zahn, Neuenburg 1901. Reprinted as contributions to the bibliography and review of German Science Fiction, Vol. 18. With introduction and epilogue ed. by Detlef Münch. Synergen, Dortmund 2007, ISBN 978-3-935634-77-9 .
    • Another edition: Honeymoon in space. Translated by Martin Clauß. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2007, ISBN 978-3-8370-0707-7 .

Novels

  • The Outlaws of the Air (1895)
  • Valdar the Oft-Born (1895)
  • Briton or Boer? A Tale of the Fight for Africa (1897)
  • The Knights of the White Rose (1897)
  • The Romance of Golden Star (1897)
  • The Destined Maid (1898)
  • The Gold Finder (1898)
  • The Virgin of the Sun: A Tale of the Conquest of Peru (1898)
  • The Great Pirate Syndicate (1899)
  • The Rose of Judah (1899)
  • Brothers of the Chain (1900)
  • Thou Shalt Not— (1900, as Stanton Morich)
  • Captain Ishmael: A Saga of the South Seas (1901)
  • Denver's Double (1901)
  • The Justice of Revenge (1901)
  • The Missionary (1902)
  • The White Witch of Mayfair (1902)
  • A Woman Against the World (1903)
  • The Lake of Gold (1903)
  • The World Masters (1903)
  • A Criminal Croesus (1904)
  • An Island Love Story (1904)
  • The Stolen Submarine: A Tale of the Russo-Japanese War (1904)
  • His Beautiful Client (1905)
  • His Better Half (1905)
  • A Mayfair Magician: A Romance of Criminal Science (1905)
  • A Conquest of Fortune (1906)
  • The Great Weather Syndicate (1906)
  • The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension (1906, also as The Mummy and the Girl: A Fantasy of the Fourth Dimension, 1930)
  • The World Peril of 1910 (1907)
  • John Brown, Buccaneer (1908)
  • The Sacred Skull (1908)
  • The Lord of Labor (1911)

Collections

  • Gambles with Destiny (1899)
  • The Raid of "Le Vengeur" ​​and Other Stories (1974)
  • Stories of Other Worlds and A Honeymoon in Space (2000)

Short stories

  • The Fall of Berlin (1893)
  • Up a Gum Tree (1894)
  • The True Fate of the Flying Dutchman (1894)
  • A Heroine of the Slums. London, Tower, (1894?).
  • The Gold Plant (1895)
  • A Photograph of the Invisible (1896)
  • A Genius for a Year (1896, also as Levin Carnac)
  • The Great Crellin Comet (1897)
  • A Corner in Lightning (1898)
    • English: In the eye of the storm. In: James Gunn (ed.): From Shelley to Clarke. Heyne (Library of Science Fiction Literature # 100), 2000, ISBN 3-453-17104-7 .
  • Hellville, USA (1898)
  • The Conversion of the Professor: A Tale of the Fourth Dimension (1899)
  • Knaves of Diamonds, Being Tales of Mine and Veld (1899, also as The Diamond Dog , 1913)
  • The Plague-Ship "Tupisa" (1899)
  • The Raid of "Le Vengeur" (1901)
  • The Lost Elixir (1903)
  • From Pole to Pole: An Account of a Journey Through the Axis of the Earth; Collated from the Diaries of the Late Professor Haffkin and His Niece, Mrs. Arthur Princeps (1904)
    • German: From pole to pole. In: Erik Simon , Olaf R. Spittel (ed.): Drive through infinity: stories of unusual journeys and strange planets. Das Neue Berlin (Classic Science Fiction Stories), 1988, ISBN 3-360-00184-2 .

Poems

Griffith published his poetry under the pen name Lara.

  • Poems General, Secular, and Satirical (1883)
  • The Dying Faith (1884)

Non-fiction

  • Round the World in 76 Days (1890, also as In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World , 1891)
  • How I Broke the Record Round the World (1894, also as Around the World in 65 Days with George Griffith: The Story of the Real Phileas Fogg , 2010)
  • Men Who Have Made the Empire (1897)
  • In an Unknown Prison Land: An Account of Convicts and Colonists in New Caledonia (1901)
  • With Chamberlain in Africa (1903)
  • Sidelights on Convict Life (1903)

Translations

  • Alphonse Daudet : The Hope of the Family (translation by Soutien de Famille , 1898, as Levin Camac)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Everett Franklin Bleiler , Richard J. Bleiler: Science Fiction: The Early Years. Kent State University Press, 1990, p. 302.
  2. ↑ Sam Moskowitz: Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891-1911. World Publishing 1968.
personal data
SURNAME Griffith, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Griffith-Jones, George Chetwynd (full name); Jones, George Chetwynd (maiden name); Griffith, George Chetwynd (alternative spelling); Griffiths, George (alternative spelling); Camac, Levin (pseudonym); Lara (pseudonym); Morich, Stanton (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British science fiction author, journalist, explorer and world traveler
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Plymouth
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 1906
Place of death Port Erin , Isle of Man