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M.P. Shiel
Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865-1947), was born July 21, 1865, in Montserrat, West Indies. His father,
a ship-owner, shopkeeper, and lay Methodist preacher had laid claim to the small rocky Leeward island of Redonda, of which
his son was crowned king on his 15th birthday. Beginning to write at 11, Shiel was educated in Barbados, then London,
England. Shiel spoke seven languages and served as an interpreter before trying his hand at medicine and teaching
mathematics. Shiel was an active man, jogging six miles a day into his 70s and practicing mountaineering and
yoga. Married twice, Shiel was "an eager womanizer" fathering several illegitimate children. Impressed at an early
age by the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and given his knowledge of many languages, Shiel's poetic prose was
idiosyncratically unique, being compared by some to improvisational jazz, by others to stylistic sound effects. Shiel
has been accused by some of anti-Semitism, but others suggest he used the racist views of his time as a literary device
to ultimately discredit racism an expound his own peculiar belief system. Towards the end of his life Shiel
adopted an anti-Christian stance based on scientific knowledge over hope ("ignorance") and completed an analysis
and retelling of the Gospel of Matthew. Several of his works toy with eugenics and the Nietzschean übermensch
concept, though the latter under a communal rather than individualistic form, and not as something inherent in a
race or creed, but rather a status achieved through learning. During his life Shiel wrote 25 novels and
numerous short-stories, the best of which he produced between 1895 and 1905. These include
Prince Zaleski (1895), Shapes of Fire (1896), Cold Steel (1899), Contraband of War (1899),
The Purple Cloud (1901) and Lord of the Sea. Shiel died on February 17, 1947, at a hospital in Chichester.
ISFDB Bibliography
Biography/Bibliography
Biography/Bibliography-2
Kingdom of Redonda-1
Kingdom of Redonda-2
Bison Books ed. of The Purple Cloud
Shiel/Gawsworth related papers at the University of Iowa
JDS Books/Vainglory Press
A. Reynolds Morse Collection of M.P. Shiel
Shiel as a mystery writer
E-TEXT: 5 stories
E-TEXT: "Arthur Machen"
E-TEXT: "The Case of Euphemia Raphash",
also here
E-TEXT: "A Torture by Hope" by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, translated by M.P. Shiel
E-TEXT: "L'Abri" by Malcolm M. Ferguson
E-TEXT: "Dweller in the Tomb of Mausolus: The Return of Prince Zaleski" by Philip Lister
E-TEXT: "Two Kings of Redonda: M.P. Shiel and John Gawsworth" by Jon Wynne-Tyson
BOOK REVIEW: The Purple Cloud: 1,
2 (in Japanese),
3 (in Italian),
4,
5,
6 (in French),
7
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A review by Georges T. Dodds
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Volume 2. The Shielography Updated. Part 1
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Besides of a couple of late short story collaborations with his literary executor John Gawsworth (no, not Gawsworthy), the vast majority of the material in this volume is bibliographical, detailing various editions of Shiel's books, his appearances in periodicals, and non-fictional writings by and about him. Some of this material is worth reading once over for some of the anecdotes and incidental comments about Shiel, his contemporaries and the publishing milieu of the time, but in general this volume is only really of appeal to the Shiel collector or student.
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Volume 2. The Shielography Updated. Part 1 |
| Contents and Details |
Pages |
| Contents |
9 |
| Illustrations by Robert Arrington List of original illustrations |
10 |
| Illustrations |
11 |
| Foreword |
13 |
| 1. Checklist of the various editions of the novels and short stories of M.P. Shiel |
15 |
2. The Collations
- Notes on collations
- 1895-1901
- Prince Zaleski
- The Rajah's Sapphire
- Shapes in the Fire
- The Yellow Danger
- Contraband of War
- Cold Steel
- The Man-Stealers
- 1901-1914
- The Lord of the Sea
- The Purple Cloud
- The Weird O' It
- Unto the Third Generation
- The Evil That Men Do
- The Lost Viol
- The Yellow Wave
- The Last Miracle
- This Knot of Life
- The Isle of Lies
- The Pale Ape
- The Dragon a.k.a. The Yellow Peril
- 1923-1937
- Children of the Wind
- How the Old Woman Got Home
- The Yellow Peril
- Dr. Krasinski's Secret
- The Black Box
- This Above All a.k.a. Above All Else
- Say Au R'voir But Not Goodbye
- The Invisible Voices
- The Poems of M.P. Shiel
- The Young Men are Coming
- The Best Short Stories of M.P. Shiel
- Science, Life and Literature
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- 27
- 32
-
-
- 32
39
42
50
73
77
86
- 92
- 92
108
128
136
141
145
151
155
168
172
179
185
- 193
- 193
195
205
206
211
214
217
219
224
230
234
235
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A Note on the Serializations and the Three Future East-West War Novels by A. Reynolds Morse
- The Yellow Danger 1898
- The Yellow Wave (1905)
- The Dragon (1913)
- The Yellow Peril (1929)
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51 |
3. The short works of M.P. Shiel Contents of short story collections
- Contents
- Introduction
- Prince Zaleski
- Shapes in the Fire
- The Pale Ape
- Here Comes the Lady
- The Invisible Voices
- The Best Short Stories of M.P. Shiel
- Xélucha and Others
- Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk
- Some Short Stories
- Stories not reprinted elsewhere
- Stories unpublished and untraced
- Stories not reprinted since last appearance in one of the five original collections
- Collaborations: John Gawsworth and M.P. Shiel
Reprinted short stories
- "Wayward Love" by M.P. Shiel
- "The Missing Merchants" by M.P. Shiel and John Gawsworth
- "The Return of Cummings Monk" by M.P. Shiel and John Gawsworth
- "Maymia and M'Toma" by M.P. Shiel
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- 237
- 239
- 241
- 244
- 255
- 259
- 269
- 276
- 286
- 288
- 290
- 292
- 294
- 296
- 298
- 299
- 305
- 305
- 315
- 329
- 339
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4. Miscellaneous Works by M.P. Shiel- Books, Anthologies, etc.
- Periodicals and Newspapers
- M.P. Shiel and Arthur Machen
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- 347
- 352
- 355
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| 5. Known manuscripts, corrected texts proofs, typescripts, published and unpublished |
365 |
6. Bibliography: M.P. Shiel- In Books
- In Periodicals, etc.
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- 385
- 401
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