Lea, Homer
Entry updated 25 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1876-1912) US soldier and author, handicapped from early youth by an accident which caused him to become a hunchback less than five feet tall, and who died from the effects of a stroke. In 1899 he became involved in the Boxer Rebellion in China, and was involved in Chinese politics until his death, and became a noted campaigner against the threat of imperial Japan, notably in the Yellow Peril propaganda piece, The Valor of Ignorance (1909), in which it is asserted that a racially contaminated USA – riddled also with Feminists – must attempt to gird its loins against a Japanese Invasion. But Japan will win, using occupied Los Angeles as a base from which to conquer the rest of California and other Pacific US regions. The book was soon reprinted in Japan, and in 1942 was again reprinted, in both Japan and the USA. A second exercise in prophecy, The Day of the Saxon (1912), focuses on Germany's inevitable success in a Continental land war in a coming decade. Lea's first book, The Vermilion Pencil: A Romance of China (1908), depicts China as a lush Land of Fable [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. [JC]
Homer Lea
born Denver, Colorado: 17 November 1876
died Ocean Park, California: 1 November 1912
works
- The Vermilion Pencil: A Romance of China (New York: McClure Company, 1908) [hb/]
- The Valor of Ignorance (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1909) [nonfiction: hb/]
- The Day of the Saxon (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1912) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
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