A Voyage to Arcturus
David Lindsay 1920
This fantasy novel follows Maskull on a journey across Tormance, a planet in the Arcturus star system. There, he grows new organs that let him sense the world in unfamiliar ways.
337 pages 6h 33m reading time
- A cult classic of early fantasy and science fiction, often called one of the strangest and most daring books in either form.
- Imagines that the beauty and pleasure of the world are a trap, a false creation that hides a harsher and truer reality lying beyond it.
- Suggests that pain and struggle bring a person closer to the truth than comfort does, turning a space voyage into a search for meaning.
- Shaped C. S. Lewis, who said it showed him how a trip to another planet could carry spiritual ideas, and it helped inspire his own space novels beginning with Out of the Silent Planet.
- Moved the critic Harold Bloom to write his only novel, The Flight to Lucifer, as a tribute to it.
Sold under 600 copies
The first printing sold fewer than 600 copies, and the rest were pulped, so it was nearly forgotten.
Written in Cornwall
Lindsay wrote it after the First World War while living in Porthleven, a fishing town in Cornwall.
Inspired by Wagner's music
Lindsay loved music, and its music-like structure grew partly from his deep feeling for Wagner and Beethoven.
Saved by a reprint
A 1946 reprint and later paperback editions in the 1960s and 1970s brought it many new readers.