Collins, Mortimer
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1827-1876) UK poet and author, moderately prolific in various genres; one collection of poetry, The Inn of Strange Meetings and Other Poems (coll 1871), contains Arthurian material. His three novels of sf interest are each of only tangential interest, but are good examples of how sf could be used in nineteenth-century Britain to avoid the implications of scientific discoveries like Evolution. Miranda: A Midsummer Madness (1873 3vols) makes passing reference to an Amazonian Lost World and a sinking Island; Squire Silchester's Whim (1873 3vols) places a spoofed Lemuel Gulliver (see Gulliver; Jonathan Swift) into a pretentious Lost World, also in the Amazon region; and the second volume of Transmigration (1874 3vols) incorporates a kind of posthumous fantasy set on an advanced Mars (see also Utopia), from which, in volume three, the reincarnated protagonist returns thankfully to Earth. [JC]
Edward James Mortimer Collins
born Plymouth, Devon: 29 June 1827
died Richmond, Middlesex: 28 July 1876
works
- Miranda: A Midsummer Madness (London: Henry S King, 1873) [three volumes: hb/]
- Squire Silchester's Whim (London: Henry S King, 1873) [three volumes: hb/]
- Transmigration (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1874) [three volumes: hb/]
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