A Voyage to Arcturus

[Finch]

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
I discoverer this book years ago . It was published in 1920 and was an instant lead balloon. It has been in and out of publication ever since and because of the digital age , is slowly being rediscover by a wider audience.
The book has been stuck in my brain since I first read it . Coincidentally I found out , after reading the book , that he lived in Hove just down the road from were I lived for 35 years. The house was bombed in the last war ,when he was in the bathe , and it is believed it may of-been the cause of his death. I moved just along the south coast a couple of years ago and have been busy rebuilding my new home . Now I have finished, and started to return to some old interests . I found The Violet Apple , a web site dedicated to the life and works of David Lindsay and I discoverer he lived in a bungalow just up the road from my new house.

Back to the book . It is said to be one of the best books ever written, but to date I have not meet anybody who know what the book is about. It may not be about anything, but just the product of an over active mind of a mad man .
Anybody read it ?

 

[HareBrain]

I've read it a couple of times, and I think several others here have read it too. If you do a search for "arcturus" in the title it brings up three other threads about the book.

I've since read two other books by Lindsay, Devil's Tor (which I didn't finish) and Sphinx, which I did finish, but wasn't as interesting as Arcturus by a long way. I've also read The Strange Genius of David Lindsay by Colin Wilson, which I would recommend as a short bio and discussion of his ideas.

 

[Finch]

I've read it a couple of times, and I think several others here have read it too. If you do a search for "arcturus" in the title it brings up three other threads about the book.

I've since read two other books by Lindsay, Devil's Tor (which I didn't finish) and Sphinx, which I did finish, but wasn't as interesting as Arcturus by a long way. I've also read The Strange Genius of David Lindsay by Colin Wilson, which I would recommend as a short bio and discussion of his ideas.

The strange genius of David Lindsay sound interesting . I just googled it and you can buy a copy for about £100 . You don't have a copy you can send me?

 

[Extollager]

I've read Lindsay's The Haunted Woman twice and expect to do so again. Interesting book.

 

[HareBrain]

I just googled it and you can buy a copy for about £100

Paperback on Amazon UK for £8.50. (This might be slightly different to the one for £100, which contains contributions from two other writers.)

Haunted Man: Strange Genius of David Lindsay (Popular Writers of Today ; V. 20): Amazon.co.uk: Wilson, Colin: 9780893701284: Books

Buy Haunted Man: Strange Genius of David Lindsay (Popular Writers of Today ; V. 20) by Wilson, Colin (ISBN: 9780893701284) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

(I'm not sure what it's doing in the "popular writers of today" series!)

Or, if you're in the UK and a library member, you should be able to get it on inter-library loan, even if your own county service doesn't have it. (West Sussex has a copy, which is the one I read.)

 

[Vince W]

Paperback on Amazon UK for £8.50. (This might be slightly different to the one for £100, which contains contributions from two other writers.)

Haunted Man: Strange Genius of David Lindsay (Popular Writers of Today ; V. 20): Amazon.co.uk: Wilson, Colin: 9780893701284: Books

Buy Haunted Man: Strange Genius of David Lindsay (Popular Writers of Today ; V. 20) by Wilson, Colin (ISBN: 9780893701284) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

(I'm not sure what it's doing in the "popular writers of today" series!)

Or, if you're in the UK and a library member, you should be able to get it on inter-library loan, even if your own county service doesn't have it. (West Sussex has a copy, which is the one I read.)

Libraries are the best. The world would be a much better place if we put libraries on every block.

 

[Finch]

Paperback on Amazon UK for £8.50. (This might be slightly different to the one for £100, which contains contributions from two other writers.)

Haunted Man: Strange Genius of David Lindsay (Popular Writers of Today ; V. 20): Amazon.co.uk: Wilson, Colin: 9780893701284: Books

Buy Haunted Man: Strange Genius of David Lindsay (Popular Writers of Today ; V. 20) by Wilson, Colin (ISBN: 9780893701284) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

(I'm not sure what it's doing in the "popular writers of today" series!)

Or, if you're in the UK and a library member, you should be able to get it on inter-library loan, even if your own county service doesn't have it. (West Sussex has a copy, which is the one I read.)

Thanks for all that , I live in West Sussex. David Lindsay lived in Ferring. But, I have just bought the book from Foyles for £6.96 Post free

 

[Extollager]

My understanding is that there's more than one text of the novel -- not with major differences, but with differences in some details, so that one really is better than the other. I can't seem to run that down now, but will try some more.

 

[Finch]

Violetapple.org.uk is a web site dedicated to the works of David Lindsay . I have on just started looking at it , but it lists most of the versions of his books and , if available, links an ebook

 

[Extollager]

Here we go! I have it on good authority that these are good editions of Voyage:

1.the original edition -- Methuen, 1920
2.the Gregg Press facsimile reprint, 1975
3.any Gollancz edition

But the text was altered for the Macmillan edition in the US, and for the Ballantine edition derived from that. I understand that it's this that is the source of the online offerings of the novel, and that those were the source of reprints after the 1990s.

A rule of thumb that was suggested to me is that one should check the first page of the story. Is the house name 'Prolands' printed thus, in single quotation marks? That's what you want to see. If it isn't, the text has been edited undesirably.

That's about as much as I am prepared to say.

 

[BAYLOR]

My understanding is that there's more than one text of the novel -- not with major differences, but with differences in some details, so that one really is better than the other. I can't seem to run that down now, but will try some more.

The edition of that book that I read was the one published by in 1972 Adult fantasy series.

The book it self was a very strange read , but, I quite enjoyed it and ive have never read anything else quite like it.

 

[Extollager]

The Ballantine is the edition I have, too, but I'll probably try to get a Gollancz from the library when I want to read it again.

Technically, Voyage isn't in Ballantine's Adult Fantasy series, but belongs to a group of books published just before the series was launched.

Ballantine Adult Fantasy series - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Finch]

I have managed to add a working link. It has the best version of the book that can be downloaded for free or buy a hard back book . There is an explanation of some of the edits that have been made over the years , but it is mostly removing typos and correcting grammar.

violetapple.org.uk

 

[Matteo]

The Ballentine version

is the one I have. Only read it a couple of years ago and thought it was a fantastic - though deeply weird - book and I enjoyed it.

Here's a review and an interesting article:

“One Long Discomfort”: The Legacy and Future of David Lindsay’s ‘A Voyage to Arcturus’

David Lindsay’s masterpiece A Voyage to Arcturus was first published in London in 1920 by Methuen & Co. It came dressed in a simple red cloth cover; no dust jacket, just the title and author’s name debossed into the front...

wearethemutants.com

A Book That Made Me, and an odd bull

On a Sunday afternoon in 1956 (24th June, thanks David Pringle), aged 13, I was riveted for about 3 hours by a dramatisation of David Lindsay's 1920 novel A Voyage

www.ianwatson.info

[Edit: wow! that Violet site shows some dedication to the book.]

 

[REBerg]

My battered paperback copy. Unfortunately, a Macmillan Company edition, Copyright
1963, purchased in 1969 for 95 cents. I have no memory of it, but I could say the same
about last week. It could be a good re-read.​

 

[BAYLOR]

View attachment 57514
My battered paperback copy. Unfortunately, a Macmillan Company edition, Copyright
1963, purchased in 1969 for 95 cents. I have no memory of it, but I could say the same
about last week. It could be a good re-read.​

That's the exact edition I had. I wish I had kept it after I read it .

 

[BAYLOR]

This book would difficult to make into a film.

 

[Finch]

youtube.com/watch?v=b_aQ_WA38ow&t=3583s

There is film , but this is not a recommendation to watch it .

 

[Extollager]

I'm reading it again now, in a Gollancz hardcover from 1963 from the library. People talk about Lindsay's style being bad, at least in the opening pages, but they haven't bothered me.

 

[Ambrose]

Just came across this thread.
I first read the Voyage years ago, and then 8/9 years ago. It sticks in the mind, but is tortuous - see the summary in Wikipedia. Maybe Nightspore has something to say about it??