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A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder (1888) is a novel by James De Mille. Originally serialized in Harper's Weekly, the novel was published posthumously and, at first, anonymously. Although De Mille's work predated such popular Lost World novels as H. Rider Haggard's She (1887) and King Solomon's Mines (1885), it was published nearly a decade after his death, leading critics to assume he had merely written a derivative work of fiction. Recent scholarship, however, has sought to emphasize De Mille's talents as a writer and importance in the historical development of literary science fiction. "The wind had failed, a deep calm had succeeded, and everywhere, as far as the eye could reach, the water was smooth and glassy. The yacht rose and fell at the impulse of the long ocean undulations, and the creaking of the spars sounded out a lazy accompaniment to the motion of the vessel." Sailing in their yacht, a crew spots a copper cylinder afloat on the sunbeaten sea. Hauling it aboard, they open it to reveal a manuscript sealed from the elements containing the story of Adam More. Shipwrecked while returning to Britain from Tasmania, the sailor found himself stranded on a strange desert island near Antarctica. Soon, he stumbles upon a lost world of prehistoric plants and animals, a land of indescribable beauty and wonder. In the harsh volcanic landscape, he discovers a race of humans whose values are entirely foreign to his Western frame of mind. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of James De Mille's A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder is a classic work of American science fiction reimagined for modern readers.
About the author
James De Mille was a professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and an early Canadian author who wrote a number of works of popular fiction from the late 1860s through the 1870s. He was born on August 23, 1833, and he passed away on January 28, 1880. De Mille, the son of businessman and shipowner Nathan De Mille, was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He studied for a year at Acadia University after attending Horton Academy in Wolfville. After that, he went to Europe with his brother Elisha Budd, spending a half-year in England, France, and Italy, where he was inspired to write several of his masterpieces. He attended Brown University shortly after arriving back in North America, where he graduated with a Master of Arts in 1854. A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, which was serialized posthumously in the journal Harper's Weekly and published in book form by Harper & Brothers of New York City in 1888, is the most well-liked work among his contemporaries and the work for which he is currently best known. He worked there until 1865 when he agreed to a new position as a professor of English and rhetoric at Dalhousie.
