Atlantis has been described as the greatest of all historical mysteries. Plato, writing about 350 BC, was the first to mention the great island in the Atlantic Ocean which had vanished ‘in a day and a night’, and been submerged beneath the waves. Plato’s account in the two late dialogues of Timaeus and Critias has the absorbing quality of good science fiction. According to Plato, Atlantis was already a great civilization when Athens had been founded about 9600 BC. It lay beyond the pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar) and was larger than Libya and Asia put together. The sea god, Poseidon, founded the Atlantean race by fathering ten children on a mortal maiden named Cleito. Although they were great engineers and architects, the Atlanteans were, however, also a warlike people who were only finally conquered by the Athenians. At this point violent floods and earthquakes destroyed both nations’ armies and Atlantis sank beneath the waves. The destruction of Atlantis was in part supposedly a punishment from the gods, for when the Atlanteans began to lose the wisdom and virtue they inherited from the gods, and became greedy, corrupt and domineering, the chief god Zeus decided to teach them a lesson. Although many later scholars and commentators have assumed that Atlantis was a myth or allegory, others have been persuaded by the sheer detail of Plato’s account that at its core it was grounded in fact but embellished in the manner of a fable or fairytale. Needless to say, many have taken either side in a debate that has rumbled on for over two thousand years: was Atlantis a reality or a work of fiction?
Top Posts & Pages
Liddell’s Ghost
Click image to read my short story, 'Liddell’s Ghost' in Cygnus, the Journal of Speculative Fiction.
Changed
Click image to read my short story 'Changed' in The Cynic Online Magazine.
First Date
Click image to read my short story 'First Date' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
Ghost Walk
Click image to read my short story 'Ghost Walk' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
M R James
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Ghosts of Christmas Past
‘There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,’ wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), ‘something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails’. Dickens would no doubt agree, […]
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M R James’s Suffolk
The macabre beneath the landscape is not dispelled by nearness to the sea. What Henry James knew, and described in English Hours (1905) – the strangeness present on a flattened seashore – M R James (no blood relation, although the two were acquainted) expressed in two of his best-known ghost stories: Oh, Whistle, and I’ll […]
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A Warning to the Curious
Here’s a real festive treat. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy!
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Lost Hearts
I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I’ve never fully been able to answer. Lost Hearts, an early tale which apparently James didn’t much care for, and which only appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary to […]
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A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth
Here’s a real treat to conclude the series of Christmas ghost stories that I’ve been posting for the last few weeks – the BBC adaptation of The Tractate Middoth from just a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed they do another one this year!
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Ghost Cities 