An Annotated Bibliography of
M. P. Shiel
By Alan Gullette
Consisting of
First Editions Only, With Some Exceptions
Short Descriptions
Based Largely On
A. Reynolds Morse's The Works Of M. P. Shiel
(Los Angeles:
Fantasy Publishing, 1948),
Except As Noted
With Additional
Input from
John Squires and
Laurence Roberts
Prince Zaleski (London: John Lane, 1895) -- three detective stories: "The Race of Orven," "The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks," and "The S.S."
Shapes
in the Fire (London:
John Lane, 1896) -- five Poesque stories, an essay, and a long poem:
"Xélucha," "Maria in the Rose-Bush," "Vaila,"
"Premier and Maker (An Essay)," "Tulsah," "The Serpent
Ship" (poem), and "Phorfor"; E. F. Bleiler placed it on his
suggested reading list of Victorian supernatural fiction.
The
Pale Ape (London: T.
Werner Laurie, 1911) -- mostly thrillers and a few supernatural stories;
contents: "The Pale Ape," "The Case of Euphemia Raphash,"
the three-part "Cummings King Monk," "A Bundle of Letters,"
"Huegenin's Wife," "Many a Tear" (which Shiel considered
the only "worthy" story in the collection), "The House of
Sounds" (revision of "Vaila"), "The Spectre Ship," "The
Great King," and "The Bride."
Here
Comes the Lady (London:
The Richards Press, 1928) -- "powerful short stories ... joined by a
very thin and unworthy narrative plot in which several suitors compete in
telling stories for the hand of a girl" -- " Shiel's frenzied style
and no other would suit such mad amazing adventures"; contents: "The
Tale of Hugh and Agatha," "The Tale of Henry and Rowena,"
"The Tale of Gaston and Mathilde," "No. 16 Brook Street," "The
Tale of One in Two," "The Tale of Charley and Barbara,"
"The Bell of St. Sépulcre," "The Primate of the Rose,"
"The Corner in Cotton," "Dark Lot of One Saul," and
"The Tale of Adam and Hannah."
The
Invisible Voices
(London: The Richards Press, 1935) -- "If he had never written any novels
at all, these [eleven] unique and varied stories by themselves would set him
permanently beside Saki, O. Henry, and Ambrose Bierce"; contents:
"The Panel Day," "The Adore Day," "The Rock Day (The
Vulture's Rock)," "The Diary Day," "The Cat Day,"
"The Lion Day," "The Place of Pain Day," "The
Vengeance Day," "The Venetian Day," "The Future Day,"
and "The Goat Day."
The
Best Short Stories of M. P. Shiel
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1948) -- John Gawsworth's selection using original
versions of stories; contents: "The Race of Orven," "The Stone
of the Edmundsbury Monks," "The S.S.," "Xélucha,"
"Vaila," "Tulsah," "Phorfor," "Huegenin's
Wife," "Monk Wakes an Echo," "The Bride," "Dark
Lot of One Saul," and "The Primate of the Rose."
Xélucha
and Others (Sauk City,
WI: Arkham House, 1975) -- the Arkham selection of the supernatural tales,
revised by Shiel; still in print; contents: "Xélucha," "The
Primate of the Rose," "Dark Lot of One Saul," "The House of
Sounds," "The Globe of Goldfish," "Many a Tear"
"The Bride," "The Tale of Henry and Rowena," "The Bell
of St. Sépulcre," "Huegenin's Wife," "The Pale Ape,"
and "The Case of Euphemia Raphash."
Prince
Zaleski and Cummings King Monk
(Sauk City, WI: Mycroft & Moran, 1977) -- a collection of stories involving these
sleuths, still in print; contains the three stories from Prince Zaleski
plus "The Return of Prince Zaleski" (a posthumous collaboration with
John Gawsworth) and the Monk stories "He Meddles with Women,"
"He Defines 'Greatness of Mind,'" and "He Wakes an Echo."
Xélucha
and The Primate of the Rose
(Sussex: Tartarus Press, 1994) -- two stories, same versions as the Arkham House Xélucha.
Prince
Zaleski (Carlton,
England: Tartarus Press, 2002). -- presents the "complete" Zaleski:
the three tales from the 1893 John Lane edition plus three posthumous
collaborations with John Gawsworth: "The Return of Prince Zaleski,"
"The Missing
Merchants" (set in Machen's hometown of Gwent), and the unfinished
"The Hargen Inheritance."
The Rajah's Sapphire (London: Ward, Lock & Bowden, 1896) with W. T. Stead -- a coveted gem haunts its owners. Handsomely reprinted by Highflyer Press in 1981, with an Afterword by John D. Squires.
The
Yellow Danger (London:
Grant Richards, 1898) John Hardy battles the Chinaman Yen How for domination of
the world
Contraband
of War (London: Grant
Richards, 1899) -- a Spaniard and an American engage in a contest of wits; the
standoff results in an alliance which will surely subdue the world; written as
a serial during the Spanish-American War of 1898
Cold
Steel (London: Grant
Richards, 1899) -- "a swashbuckling tale set among the court and times of
Henry VIII" (Morse)
The
Man-Stealers (London:
Hutchinson & Co., 1900) -- the French plot to kidnap the Duke of Wellington
to avenge Napoleon's imprisonment
Lord
of the Sea (London:
Grant Richards, 1901) -- "Richard Hogarth ... finds a meteorite full
of diamonds, builds huge steel forts with his wealth, places them at the
cross-roads" of the earth's oceans to control all sea-traffic for tribute
to benefit "the citizens of his mammoth iron islands." (The 1924
Knopf U.S. edition was "savagely cut.")
The
Purple Cloud (London:
Chatto & Windus, 1901) -- Adam Jeffson adventures to the North Pole; on
returning he realizes the entire population of the world has been destroyed by
a cloud of cyanogen; he tours with world as master of all he sees, revelling
and destroying as he will
The
Weird o' It (London:
Grant Richards, 1902) -- the life of John Hay is a "mixture of
tragic romance and adventure" -- "stylistically ... not a great deal
of the ultra-solar Shiel" but "plotwise the story is magnificent as
Hay is transformed by the vagaries of his experiences into an Overman"
Unto
the Third Generation
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1903) -- mystery, adventure, and romantic
narrative
The
Evil that Men Do
(London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1904) -- "the story of a great
impersonation" of one man by another, made possible by the strange fact
that both were born in the image of the mad captain of a ship which transported
their mothers while pregnant
The
Lost Viol (New York:
Edward J. Clode, 1905) -- romance and mystery
The
Yellow Wave (London:
Ward, Lock & Co., 1905) Shiel called it his "Romeo and Juliet"
as well as "a novel written without adjectives" -- the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-5 is prematurely ended by the death of the enamored son and
daughter of the countries' leaders
The
Last Miracle (London: T.
Werner Laurie, 1906) -- Baron Kolar comes from distant Styria to rural
England, "creating hoaxes of religious miracles with the intended goal of
building up religious fervor and eventually revealing them as fake, thereby
discrediting the church and causing its downfall" (Laurence Roberts).
The
White Wedding (London:
T. Werner Laurie, 1908) -- a "very straight-forward story" --
tragic and with "more conversation, and more natural conversation than is
usual for Shiel" (Morse); "a game keeper enters into a Platonic
(thus, 'white') wedding to save his true love for his unworthy lord"
(Squires).
The
Isle of Lies (London: T.
Werner Laurie, 1909) -- "Doctor Lepsius finds an unusual stone but
he cannot decipher the ancient writing on it," so he sires "a son who
will be able to read his mysterious piece of basalt" -- but the son is
distracted from his scholarly, monastic life by the lure of women and the world
This
Knot of Life (London:
Everett & Co., 1909) -- personal intrigue, misadventure, and a happy
ending somehow illustrate Shiel's philosophy of art and life
The
Dragon (London: Grant
Richards, 1913) Re-issued as The Yellow Peril (1929) -- a Sino-English
war features flying boats and blinding rays -- called The Yellow Danger
"with the racism removed" just as the 1929 revision "omits most
of the strange and controversial elements" (Paul Spencer)
Children
of the Wind (London:
Grant Richards, 1923) -- adventure set in Africa: tribal warfare
including "biological warfare," lesbianism, and (as usual)
"vibrant plotting" -- "a full-blooded story done in his
fabulously refreshing style" -- written after a ten-year hiatus
How
the Old Woman Got Home
(London: The Richards Press, 1927) -- fast-paced mystery: "real
Shiel" -- "sold very widely" despite the fact that "it
carried a message"
Dr.
Krasinski's Secret (New
York: The Vanguard Press, 1929) -- combines "a superb medical mystery, a
romance, and an adventure story"
The
Black Box (New York: The
Vanguard Press, 1930) -- a murder mystery of "almost cryptic"
style and "unexpected and ingenious" compactness of plot
Say
Au R'Voir But Not Goodbye
(London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1933) -- "a sunken ship ... mysteriously
floats herself in time to redeem her owner"
This
Above All (New York: The
Vanguard Press, 1933) -- reissued as Above All Else (1943) -- an epistolary
"fable of immortality": "Jesus is still alive -- as well as
Lazarus, and ... others whom he raised from the dead" (Morse) -- Shiel
denounces superstition and praises science; "an uneasy equilibrium among
the miracles of the Gospels, cellular biology, erotica, and French politics"
(Bleiler)
The
Young Men Are Coming!
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1937) -- a science fiction story, possibly the
first to deal with alien abduction: Dr. Warwick and "the young men"
battle religious fascists with the help of space creatures
The
New King (Cleveland,
Ohio: The Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1981) -- Shiel's last novel, alternately entitled The
Splendid Devil, written c. 1934-45; also contains an unpublished dialog
with Cummings King Monk
The Empress of the Earth; The Purple Could; and Some Short Stories (Cleveland, Ohio: The Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1979) -- The Works of M. P. Shiel Vol. I, Writings -- offprints of the original periodical editions, with period illustrations; The Empress of the Earth was the original serial version of The Yellow Danger; stories from 1893-1911: "Guy Harkaway's Substitute," "The Eagle's Crag," "A Puzzling Case," "Huguenin's Wife," "The Case of Euphemia Raphash," "Wayward Love," "The Spectre Ship," "The Secret Panel," "A Night in Venice," "The Battle of Waterloo," "Ben," "The Bride," "Many a Tear," "Miche," and "A Good Thing."
"Premier and Maker" -- a 70-page essay on the philosophy of art presented in the form of dialog and included as an interlude in Shapes in the Fire (1896).
"On
Reading" -- a
"tremendous and involved philosophical treatise" that forms the first
part of This Knot of Life (1909), reprinted in Shiel in Diverse Hands.
"How
to be Happy," in The
Plain Dealer (London, Sept., 1933) pp. 28-29. Shiel describes his
"excellent system for achieving a new consciousness" through
breathing exercises; reprinted in Science, Life and Literature
Science,
Life and Literature
(1950) -- eighteen essays collected by John Gawsworth
Shiel
in Diverse Hands -- see
below under Biographical and Bibliographical
Richard's Shilling Selections from Edwardian Poets -- M. P. Shiel (London: The Richards Press, 1936) -- 37 poems mostly culled from Shiel's fiction -- "curious and uneven"
Shiel's
Collected Poems might someday be published by Highflyer Press (Kansas
City, MO).
· Shiel also wrote several books with Louis Tracy, some under the penname Gordon Holmes (mainly detective stories). He also wrote the final installment (chapter 29) of Tracy's science fiction novel, An American Emperor (Pearson's Weekly, 1897).
· The Seven Limbs of Satan, the uncollected collaborations of Shiel and John Gawsworth, might yet be published by the Vainglory Press.
Bleiler, E. F. "Matthew Phipps Shiel." In The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. John Chute and Peter Nichols. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. (Also on CDROM.)
Bleiler, E. F. "Matthew Phipps Shiel." In Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Scribner's, 1985.
Block, Andrew. Key Books of British Authors, 1600-1922 (London: Denis Archer, 1933), p. 300 lists The Purple Cloud as Shiel's "key book."
Gawsworth, John. "Notes Toward a Definitive Bibliography," in Ten Contemporaries (1932). Gawsworth (Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong), a poet, editor, and author, was a close friend of Shiel's, collaborated with him on a series of short stories in the 1930s, was named his literary executor and owner of his copyrights, and succeeded him as King of Redonda. He began but never completed a biography of Shiel. He died in 1970 and named Jon Wynne-Tyson as his successor as literary executor (undisputed) and as King of Redonda (contested). Toreros, a selection of Gawsworth's best poems, was published by Centaur Press in 1990.
Morse, Albert Reynolds. The Works of M. P. Shiel Los Angeles: Fantasy Publishing, 1948; revised and much expanded in two volumes as The Shielography Updated, Cleveland, Ohio: The Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1980. The definitive Shiel bibliography (to 1980). Morse is also notable as founder, curator, and previous owner of the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida (donated to the State of Florida).
Morse, Albert Reynolds, ed. with notes. Shiel in Diverse Hands. Cleveland, Ohio: The Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1983. This is a remarkable collection of some 30 essays, filling nearly 500 pages, by an impressive list of critics and scholars. Also reprints three significant Shiel essays. A "must" for any serious Shiel aficionado.
Contents of Shiel in Diverse Hands:
Anonymous. Man Abroad Chapter IX., "Henrygeorgia." p
485.
Arrington, Robert. "The Illustrated Shiel." p 171.
Barrett, Mike. "A Primate of Pure Prose." p 133.
Barrett, Mike. "The Short Stories of M. P. Shiel - A Chronological
Listing." p 143.
Billings, Harold. "The Shape of Shiel (Notes on the Early Years)."
p 77.
Bleiler, E. F. "M. P. Shiel 1865-1947." p 123.
Bleiler, E. F. "M. P. Shiel: Humorist?." p 132.
Derleth, August. "Two Notes on Shiel's Style." p 145.
Drake, David A. "The New King (Shiel's Final Novel): An
Appreciation." p 329.
Eng, Steve. "John Gawsworth...On M.P Shiel: A Selection." p
395.
Eng, Steve. "M. P. Shiel and Arthur Machen." p 233.
Eng, Steve. "M. P. Shiel and Secret Societies." p 223.
Ferguson, Malcolm. "On Digging Shiel." p 69.
Goldwater, Walter. "Shiel, Van Vechten and the Question of
Colour." p 75.
Hay, George. "Shiel versus the Renegade Romantic." p 109.
Herron, Don. "The Mysteries of M. P. Shiel." p 179.
Locke, George. "The Book Collector and M. P. Shiel." p 159.
Lofts, W. O. G. "Magazines containing works by M. P. Shiel."
p 153.
Lofts, W. O. G. "My Search for Elusive Shiel Material." p
147.
Moskowitz, Sam. "The Dark Plots of One Shiel." p 57.
P. Indick, Ben. "Villain, Vaudevillian and Saint." p 357.
Morse, A. Reynolds. "M. P. Shiel the Author - Still Unknown."
p 331.
Home, W. Scott. "The Rose Beyond the Thunders and the
Whirlpools." p 343.
Shanks, Edward. "The Purple Cloud and Its Author (1929)." p
23.
Shiel, M. P. "On Printing." p 406.
Shiel, M. P. "On Reading and on Writing (Revised Version,
1950)." p 449.
Shiel, M. P. "On Reading (First Version, 1909)." p 409.
Spencer, Paul. "Shiel versus Shiel." p 31.
Squires, John D. "Steel Afloat: M. P. Shiel on Naval
Warfare." p 303.
Squires, John D. "The Dragon"s Tale: M. P. Shiel on the
Emergence of Modern China." p 249.
Stableford, Brian. "The Politics of Evolution." p 369.
Tytheridge, Alan. "An Uncrowned Lord of Language (1924)." p
1.
Van Vechten, Carl. "A Prolegomenon (introduction to The Lord of
the Sea, 1924)." p 15.
Wade, James. "You Can't Get There From Here: How the Old Woman Got
Home and M. P. Shiel as Thinker." p 195.
Wayne Foster, Stephen. "Prince Zaleski and Count Stenbock." p
175.
Wilson, Colin. "Why is Shiel Neglected?" p 213.
Wynne-Tyson, Jon. "A Reluctant Monarch." p 205.
Wynne-Tyson, Jon. "M. P. Shiel: Right Royal Fantasist." p
208.
Moskowitz, Sam. "The World, the Devil, and M. P. Shiel." In Explorers of the Infinite. New York: The World Publishing Company, 1963.
Squires, John. "Shiel, M[atthew] P[hipps]." In The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. pp. 382-4.
Twentieth Century Authors (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1942), pp. 1279-80; First Supplement (1955), p. 905.
Obituaries: London Times, Feb. 20, 1947; New York Times, Feb. 18, 1947; Time, June 30, 1947.
Last updated: Feburary 17, 2004
J.D.S. Books is dedicated to books by and about M. P. Shiel.
Their Catalog of Books is online at this site.
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Phipps Shiel
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