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The Purple Cloud (Hardcover)

by M., P. Shiel (Author) "In May of this year the writer received as noteworthy a packet of papers as it has been his lot to examine-from a friend, Dr...." (more)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Price: £63.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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  • This item: The Purple Cloud by M., P. Shiel

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 236 pages
  • Publisher: Indypublish.com (9 Nov 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1421928361
  • ISBN-13: 978-1421928364
  • Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Review

"Fantastic, weird, macabre ... It is imaginative, fascinating, convincing, as some dreadful nightmare... A remarkable piece of work, ... head and shoulders above the average tale of fantastic adventure."--The New York Times Book Review "Students of early science fiction will welcome the University of Nebraska's Press series Bison Frontiers of the Imagination. This imprint has so far brought back into print sixteen texts from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including works by authors ranging from the well-known Jack London to the more obscure Mary E. Bradley Lane and J.D. Beresford. The publishers should certainly be congratulated in bringing The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel back to public attention once more. They have chosen to reprint the authors' own final expanded version ... The 1929 version is vintage Shiel; the lush prose complements the epic theme and the grandiose and insane posturings of the pyromaniac protagonist. Shiel was the most eloquent of the immediate successors to H. G. Wells, and even fans of The Last Man by Mary Shelley might admit that Shiel's account of the journeyings of the last man through a dead world is one of the most impressive treatments of this theme."--TLS, December 29, 2000 "A reprint of a lost classic, Shiel's purple cloud kills everyone except Adam Jeffers, isolated, and getting more insane as he wanders the barren earth. The question of whether man deserves to survive has never been more poignantly poised."--Western Mail Saturday Magazine 16 June 2007 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

TLS, December 29, 2000

"Students of early science fiction will welcome the University of Nebraska's Press series Bison Frontiers of the Imagination. This imprint has so far brought back into print sixteen texts from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including works by authors ranging from the well-known Jack London to the more obscure Mary E. Bradley Lane and J.D. Beresford. The publishers should certainly be congratulated in bringing The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel back to public attention once more. They have chosen to reprint the authors' own final expanded version . . . The 1929 version is vintage Shiel; the lush prose complements the epic theme and the grandiose and insane posturings of the pyromaniac protagonist.

Shiel was the most eloquent of the immediate successors to H. G. Wells, and even fans of The Last Man by Mary Shelley might admit that Shiel's account of the journeyings of the last man through a dead world is one of the most impressive treatments of this theme." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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First Sentence
In May of this year the writer received as noteworthy a packet of papers as it has been his lot to examine-from a friend, Dr. Arthur Lister Browne, M A., F R C P.-consisting of four notebooks, crowded with those giddy shapes of "shorthand," whose ensemble resembles startled swarms hovering on the wing-scribbled in pencil, and without vowels: so that their deciphering has been no holiday. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A 100 year old dark 'prediction' of a plausible future, 17 Feb 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Purple Cloud (Bison Frontiers of Imagination) (Paperback)
A fabulous book. The tale of a transcript turned book from papers sent to the author. The book centres around Adam, who by a strange turn of events avoids the purple cloud which wipes out every living thing. He goes on a descriptive journey all over the world, of a believable and eerie future, where we all want to survive, but wouldn't want to survive alone. Finally Adam settles in one place, documenting his building project, pyrotechnics and possession accumulation along the way, to the backdrop of an empty earth's weather upheaval. The reader can sense the madness which would creep in if we were to be so isolated forever......Adam goes through it all. An incredibly compelling book (with a nice twist at the end) which should be made into a film.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A dark, unforgiving, magestlc masterpiece , 20 Jan 2008
By Welly (West Sussex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Purple Cloud (Bison Frontiers of Imagination) (Paperback)
There are books that entertain and those that amuse, some shock and some amaze. This book grabs your core and swings it around the room until all the things you'd previously thought have to be revisited. It's, quite simply, a masterpiece and will knock your socks off.

Written in 1901 it has a tremendous gravitas that only writing of that era seems to own, it manages to be knowing and innocent and never fails to hit home with every magnificent, engrossing turn of the plot. The only danger is that the reader spends more time pondering what he would do in the circumstances described rather than concentrating on the book. It is rare that you finish a book and your main motive is to find a quiet corner and re-read it, but that's what the Purple Cloud will do to you. A dark, unforgiving, magestic masterpiece that puts the flimsy, gimmicky modern writers to shame. Buy it, read it, recommend it.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bleak, gripping and dark, 3 Feb 2008
By Mr. Stuart Bruce "DonQuibeats" (Cardiff, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: The Purple Cloud (Bison Frontiers of Imagination) (Paperback)
The 'last man' story was not original to M.P. Shiel but "The Purple Cloud" is definitely one of the best examples of it. For me the most distinct and compelling aspect to this novel is how darkly it is written.

Most post-apocalypse style novels make the last man a hero, with a cause and driven by hope. Here, the lead character is already a money-driven murderer before the End of the World has even begun. Without money or fame to spur him on, he finds other reasons to travel the world, setting ablaze whole cities and finding that out of his initial anarchism comes a new structure.

Although the reason for the world's destruction has a faintly 'religious parable' feel to it and the lead characters' names being Adam and Eve, this is not a particularly religious story and if you were to read it as an allegory then it would certainly be an atheist one.

According to the foreword, this is actually the 'milder' version of the novel, that Shiel re-wrote in 1929- the 1901 version of the story is, apparently, rougher and includes extra elements such as cannabalism.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars One of the most coma inducing books I've read for a long time
I'm 3 quarters of the way through it, for the past 2 quarters I've been forcing myself to read it in the assumption that it was about to get good....it hasn't so far. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Mr Reviewer

3.0 out of 5 stars A classic, but it feels a bit dated now
This is a classic book in apocalyptic fiction genre that you'll find in a lot of lists set up by fans on various web sites. Read more
Published 15 months ago by A. Phillips

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