In 1882, a Minnesota writer and politician named Ignatius Donnelly published Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, perhaps the most popular work of pseudo-science of the 19th century. Its opening pages confidently set forth 13 propositions about the legendary island kingdom—notably that Atlantis was real, that it was an advanced civilization with colonies in ancient Egypt and South America, and that it invented the alphabet and writing, practiced monotheistic sun-worship, and possessed sophisticated scientific know-how. Regrettably, as Donnelly wrote, “Atlantis perished in a terrible convulsion of nature, in which the whole island sunk into the ocean, with nearly all its inhabitants.”
Atlantis has always been a potent myth, ever since Plato first described it in the Timaeus and Critias. There he suggests that the cataclysm that ultimately destroyed this “great and wonderful empire” was punishment for religious delinquency and growing decadence. From such hints, and extensive, albeit wrongheaded, archeological research, Donnelly (in the words of E. F. Bleiler) built up “a vision of a golden past, of soaring adventurers spreading civilization around the world, of Edens that once existed, were let perish—and should be a lesson to all of us.”
These days, Atlantis is usually thought to reflect a confused memory of Minoan civilization—and yet the possibility that this neverland might have existed still nags at our imagination. Just recently, for instance, National Geographic aired a lavish documentary with James Cameron, called Atlantis Rising. Deep down, though, we don’t want paltry evidence of some vanished Bronze Age culture; we want Ignatius Donnelly’s magic kingdom in all its cinematic glory, a shimmering fantasy island where science merges with sorcery, where priests and adepts employ inexplicable powers, and the ruler is a sister of Cleopatra and She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. As it happens, this is just what C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne gives us in The Lost Continent, first published in 1900 and still the most exciting novel ever written about Atlantis. It’s also witty, slyly tongue-in-cheek, and just waiting for Hollywood.
The book opens with a prologue, set in the present: Two men are exploring some caves in the Canary Islands when they unearth a carefully hidden document written in what looks like ancient Egyptian. When deciphered, it turns out to be nothing less than the memoir of an Atlantean named Deucalion. While its opening and closing pages are lost, what remains presents a succession of adventures, battles, and marvels. Chapter one begins in medias res, yet tantalizes from the first:
In short order, we discover that Deucalion, after 20 years away as the governor of Yucatan and Mexico, is being called back to Atlantis. We quickly learn that he is plain-spoken, Spartan in his habits, a superb fighting man, and a member of an elite order of wizard-like priests. He is also sorry to be giving up his longtime posting abroad in part because Atlantis is now ruled by the upstart Phorenice, about whom he has heard disturbing things. The child of a swineherd, she has risen to power by her strategic brilliance as a general and—versatile woman—as the inventor of rifle-like “fire-tubes.” Now she holds sway over her followers through her charismatic beauty, forceful character, and the bold assertion that she is actually a daughter of the gods.
As the reader soon learns, Hyne can write action scenes as exciting as anything in Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Cimmerian) yet is equally accomplished at evocative description. We start to gain a sense of Deucalion’s primordial world of volcanic fire, earthquakes, and meteor showers when he recounts his homeward voyage:
Deucalion earns admiration from the tough captain of the Bear when he singlehandedly kills one of these plesiosaur-like creatures. Atlanteans know how to protect themselves against dinosaurs, cave-bears, and gigantic snakes, while the primitive tribes of Europe and Africa huddle fearfully at night “in earth crannies and the higher tree-tops.”
Following a sea battle with an outlaw fleet, Deucalion finally reaches Atlantis’s main port, where the Empress Phorenice, reclining in a luxurious howdah borne on the back of her pet mammoth, eagerly awaits him. Officially, she has sent for Deucalion to help put down a rebellion and, more personally, because she is weary of the fawning adoration of her courtiers. As Phorenice says, “You at least will not lose your head through weak infatuation for my poor looks and graces.”
This obvious coquetry is soon ratcheted up to actual brazenness. To underscore the seriousness of the rebellion, the empress loosens the top of her dress to show “just below the curve of the left breast a bandage of bloodstained linen.” The arrow wound, though, isn’t what she hopes Deucalion will be looking at. Irked at his apparent indifference to her physical charms, Phorenice orders her attendant to hook up the dress, saying, “My lord Deucalion has seen wounds before, and”—one can’t miss the vexation—”there is nothing else here to interest him.”
As the novel proceeds, Deucalion observes that Phorenice has beggared the citizens of Atlantis to support an extravagant court and her own penchant for precious gems and luxurious finery. The streets teem with the indigent while the elites dine on rare delicacies inside the royal pyramid. The defiant, prophet-like priest Zaemon does appears at one lavish feast to warn Phorenice to mend her ways, else suffer the consequences. He is one of the Three and, conjointly, they possess a doomsday weapon “that was forged in no mortal smithy, whereof the key is now lodged in the Ark of the Mysteries.”
By now, Deucalion feels distinctly torn: Should he be loyal to his beautiful sovereign or obey his stern old teacher?
Understandably, Phorenice grouses about the stiff, rather puritan Deucalion, whom she has decided to marry, and keeps seeking ways to thaw his reserve. At one point, the two of them wander into a rough part of town and the empress’s jewels and beauty attract a gang of would-be robbers. When Deucalion grabs his sword to defend against attack, Phorenice jumps out of her litter to join him: “Your back to mine, comrade,” she cries with a laugh, while drawing forth her own blade and shield. It turns out that the all-powerful mistress of Atlantis thrills to battle, and she and Deucalion are never so emotionally, almost sexually, close as when fighting together for their lives.
Cruel, sacrilegious, inflexible, never daunted, petulant, and consistently the smartest person in the room—Phorenice is utterly mesmerizing, often frightening, and not anyone to trifle with. On the day she proclaims herself divine, she calls down a lightning strike from the otherwise-cloudless heavens. In a quieter moment, she remembers various would-be lovers:
Note the word “some.” There’s nothing sentimental about Phorenice.
Deucalion, it goes without saying, falls for someone else. While visiting the main gate of the city, he happens upon an arena where two cave-tigers maul to death captured rebels. Against his inclinations, he is forced to watch as one prisoner, resigned to his fate, is torn apart. A second, however, decides to fight. The naked young woman picks up a bone from the arena and uses her teeth to give it a point. Instead of waiting for one of the big cats to spring, she attacks the tigress, stabbing the sharpened bone at its eye—but misses. Then, as Deucalion writes, fleeing from the now-incensed animal’s charge,
The young woman manages to seize the sill of the arrow-slit through which Deucalion is watching. But as her clutching fingers begin to loosen, she is about to fall back into the arena when “I shot out my hand and gripped hers by the wrist.” What happens next readers may discover on their own.
As the novel moves inexorably toward its apocalyptic climax, Hyne takes Deucalion into rebel camps, tests his self-control with a life-or-death dilemma, relates various mystical encounters with the shaman-like Zaemon, and finally rises to the epic defense of a narrow place against crushing odds and a revelation of the full magnitude of Atlantean magic. By then, Phorenice will have discovered the secret of immortality—but also shown herself perfectly willing to cast aside her life as if it were a bauble she had tired of.
What a book! And we owe much of it to Ignatius Donnelly. Pseudo-science, like fake news, can be powerful stuff. More than a hundred years ago, the Harvard astronomer Percival Lowell peered through his telescope and saw “canals” on Mars. Before long, people began to speculate about the existence of an advanced race on the red planet. Wishful, or fearful, thinking? Whichever the case, without that mistaken theory would H. G. Wells have written his War of the Worlds or Edgar Rice Burroughs the swashbuckling A Princess of Mars? Donnelly’s panoramic vision of a gorgeous antediluvian Atlantis inspired Cutcliffe Hyne to produce this terrifically enjoyable, deliciously over-the-top adventure novel.
Michael Dirda is the author, most recently, of Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books.
