Talbot Mundy

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Talbot Mundy (born April 23, 1879 in London , England , † August 5, 1940 in Bradenton Beach , Manatee County , Florida , USA ; pseudonym, actually William Lancaster Gribbon ) was an English / American adventurer, author and theosophist .

life and work

Childhood and travel

Mundy was born in London on April 23, 1879, the elder of two children of Walter Galt Gribbon and Margaret Lancaster . He ran away from boarding school at the rugby school in rugby , went to Germany and worked at a circus . In 1898 he returned to England, embarked for India , which he reached in March 1899, and worked in Vadodara as a laborer. Sick of malaria , he returned to England in April 1900, only to land in Mumbai in May 1901 . This was followed by trips to China and South Africa , in 1902 he hitchhiked back to Mumbai, in 1903 in England and South Africa and in 1904 Australia and Kenya , where he was a member of a street gang, worked as a tutor and dealt with ivory poaching, so he was imprisoned and then was deported to India.

In September 1909, he arrived in New York , where he received US citizenship on December 9, 1916 under the name Talbot Mundy . As a journalist, he traveled to Jerusalem , Damascus and Egypt in 1920 . From 1922 he lived on Lomaland , moved to Greenwich Village in 1928 and to New York in 1929. After a stay in England in 1932/33, Mundy moved to Florida in 1938, where he died in 1940.

Mundy's women

During his stay in Mumbai in 1902 he met Kathleen Steele , whom he married on January 31, 1903 in England. Together they drove to South Africa, where Mundy got involved in illegal stock market transactions. Before the emerging difficulties became threatening, he sent his wife back to England alone. In 1907 he began an affair with Inez Craven in Kenya , after the divorce from Kathleen he married Inez in September 1909 in New York. In June 1912 he divorced Inez, and in the same year a new marriage to Harriette Rosemary Strafer . In 1920 Mundy met Sally Ames in Jerusalem and took her back to the USA. After years of a three-way relationship , he divorced Harriette and married Sally in July 1924. The divorce from Sally followed in 1928 after he had met Dawn Allen (actually Theda Allen Conkey ) that same year . On July 31, 1931, he married Dawn as his fifth wife. During that year he also had a relationship with Natacha Rambova , who was married to Rudolph Valentino until 1926 .

Mundy's first four marriages were childless, and in his last marriage, Dawn gave him a daughter in 1933, who died soon after birth.

Church and esotericism

Through his third wife Harriette, Mundy came into contact with Christian Science in the 1910s and joined this religious community. In March 1919 he became president of the Anglo-American Society of America , an offshoot of Christian Science. As part of this organization, he traveled to the Middle East as a journalist in 1920, interviewing King Feisal and Mohammed Amin al-Husseini , the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

On January 1, 1923, he joined the Theosophical Society in America (TGinA) and lived on Lomaland , a theosophical community in Point Loma . During this time he worked for The Theosophical Path magazine , in which he published a number of articles. After Mundy got involved in an unsuccessful oil well in Baja California in 1926 and spent most of his time on this company, he came into conflict with Katherine Tingley , President of the TGinA. Tingley had no understanding of his business activities and the resulting neglect of theosophy. Mundy's interest in theosophy cooled down more and more and after Tingley's death in 1929 he resigned from the TGinA.

As an author

After his arrival in the USA in 1909 he decided to write books, his life, which had been adventurous up to then, provided plenty of material. His first work, the short story A transaction in Diamonds , appeared in February 1911, and two more stories that same year. In the following year, 1912, its production increased to 20 adventure short stories. In 1914 he began a series of eight novels in which the Scot Dick Anthony fought against the Russians in Persia. These stories provided the young Robert E. Howard with the template for his Conan figure, which was filmed under the title Conan the Barbarian . His work Her Reputation , created in 1922, was made as a film by First National in 1923 , and several others followed in the next few years. Theosophy provided him with many ideas for his fictional characters and influenced his later work significantly.

Mundy's adventure novels are mostly about Africa, the Orient, India or Tibet. Several fantasy stories as well as mystical topics are part of his repertoire. Theosophical thrillers are particularly popular with theosophists to this day.

In addition to Talbot Mundy , he used pseudonyms Makundu Viazi , White Arse , Talbot Chetwynd Miller Mundy , Thomas Hartley and Walter Galt .

Mundy died of diabetes on August 5, 1940 in Bradenton Beach , Florida at the age of 61 .

Works (selection)

  • CID The Century co., New York 1932.
  • Jimgrim and Allah's peace . D. Appleton-Century Company, New York 1936.
  • Queen Cleopatra, a novel . Bobbs-Merrill company, Indianapolis 1929.
  • The devil's guard . Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 1926.
  • The Gunga sahib . D. Appleton company, New York 1934.

literature

  • Peter Berresford Ellis: The last adventurer, the life of Talbot Mundy, 1879-1940 . DM Grant, West Kingston 1984, ISBN 0937986704 .
  • Donald M. Grant (Ed.): Talbot Mundy, messenger of destiny . DM Grant, West Kingston 1983, ISBN 0937986461 .
  • Brian Taves: Talbot Mundy, philosopher of adventure, a critical biography . McFarland, London 2006, ISBN 0786422343 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mundy, Talbot
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gribbon, William Lancaster; Viazi, Makundu; Ass, White; Mundy, Talbot Chetwynd Miller; Hartley, Thomas; Galt, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English-American adventurer, author, and theosophist
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England
DATE OF DEATH 5th August 1940
Place of death Bradenton Beach , Manatee County , Florida , USA