Atkey, Bertram
Entry updated 11 August 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1879-1952) UK author of many Magazine stories, mostly crime fiction – his Smiler Bunn thief-as-hero stories were popular in the 1920s – plus some supernatural and sf tales; in active service during World War One. His first publication of direct sf interest seems to be "The Strange Case of Alan Moraine" in The Grand Magazine for September 1912, whose title character, a noted sportsman, flies an experimental aeroplane (incorporating much new Technology) in hope of setting a high-altitude record; he is abducted by flying discs (see UFOs) from the extrasolar planet Syrax, whose queen has fallen in love with him via interstellar viewer. This romance does not end well; Moraine returns suffering from a Poison that is transforming him into metal.
Atkey's work for The Red Magazine, The Blue Book Magazine (both of which see) and The Grand Magazine includes a short series about an occult detective [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] opening with "The Maid of the Mirage" (15 July 1911 The Red Magazine) starring Maximilian Mesmer, whose name became Mesmer Milann (the Mediator) in The Grand Magazine (1914-1915). The Escapes of Mr. Honey: An Entertainment Comprising the Curious Adventures of an English Author in the Gulfs of the Bygone (stories 1916 The Red Magazine, 1930 The Blue Book Magazine; coll of linked stories 1944), plays with Reincarnation and Timeslip themes as Hobart Honey uses a special Drug to project his mind into the past and recapture the adventures of his former lives, usually to comic effect. Another series for The Red Magazine (1918-1919) was Unnatural Nature, comprising tales of mythological or prehistoric creatures found living in the present day, such as a centaur, a Dinosaur and a merman; the sequence reappeared in Blue Book (1931-1932) with one additional story as Misguided Nature.
This author's apparently unpublished novel «The Hidden Fire» is cited by several online references as the basis for the silent film The Secret Kingdom (1925; vt Beyond the Veil 1929) directed by Sinclair Hill, in which a wealthy man acquires a mind-reading Machine (see Psionics) that reveals what people are really thinking, to the predictable dismay of its owner. The storyline resembles that of Atkey's short sf tale "The Wonderful Day" (August 1919 The Grand Magazine), of which the novel – if it ever existed – might have been an expansion. [DRL]
see also: Intelligence.
Bertram Atkey
born Downton, Wiltshire: 25 December 1879
died Hampshire: 12 June 1952
works (selected)
- The Escapes of Mr. Honey: An Entertainment Comprising the Curious Adventures of an English Author in the Gulfs of the Bygone (London: Macdonald, 1944) [coll of linked stories: first appeared 1 July-1 November 1916 The Red Magazine as "The Backslidings of Mr Hobart Honey" and April-November 1930 The Blue Book Magazine: hb/]
- A Collection of Bertram Atkey's Poems and Short Stories from Classic Magazines (place not ascertained: Harrison Press, 2012) [coll: chap: pb/nonpictorial]
links
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