Friswell, Hain
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1825-1878) UK journalist and author, active from about 1851 in several genres. Blackwood's Comic Zadkiel: An Almanac at Once Prophetical and Profitable [for full title see Checklist] (coll 1855) is a spoof almanac in which the Predictions of its presenter/protagonist Zadkiel are dramatized, sometimes in sf form, including "'Grand Nephew Tom's Cabin,' An Extract From a Sequel Some Sixty Years After the Date of Mrs. Stowe's Volume", a Satire on the abolition of Slavery. Ghost Stories and Phantom Fancies (coll 1858; vt The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of James Hain Friswell 2012) is a Christmas Book comprising several tales, including a novella, "The King of the Gnomes", based loosely on "Viy" from Mirgorod ["Myrhorod"] (coll 1835) by Nicholai Gogol (1809-1852).
The nonfiction Varia: Readings from Rare Books (coll 1866) contains several essays of fantasy interest, including an essay on Nostradamus [for more on Nostradamus, plus Paracelsus and Christmas Book above, see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. [JC]
James Hain Friswell
born Forton, near Newport, Shropshire: 8 May 1825
died Bexleyheath, Kent: 12 March 1878
works (selected)
- Blackwood's Comic Zadkiel: An Almanac at Once Prophetical and Profitable, Logical and Astrological, Quizzical and Physical, Ombrological and Symbolical, Astronomically Comical, and Comically Astronomical: A Work Devoted to all the "Ologies" Except Tautology, and Containing Full Prophesies upon Everything which Nobody Wishes to Know: And Truthfully Foretelling Every Future Event, from the Winner of the Derby to the Next Revolution in the Wheel of Time (London: James Blackwood, 1855) [coll: illus/hb/William McConnell]
- Ghost Stories and Phantom Fancies (London: Richard Bentley, 1858) [coll: hb/George Cruikshank]
- The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of James Hain Friswell: Ghost Stories and Phantom Fancies: One Novelette "The King of the Gnomes", Ten Short Stories and One Poem of the Strange and Unusual (Driffield, East Yorkshire: Leonaur, 2012) [coll: vt of the above: hb/]
nonfiction
- Varia: Readings from Rare Books (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1866) [nonfiction: coll: hb/nonpictorial]
links
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Christmas Books; Nostradamus; Paracelsus.
- Picture Gallery
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