Scrymsour, Ella M
Entry updated 23 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
Working name of UK actress, playwright and author Ella Mary Scrymsour-Nichol (1888-1962), daughter-in-law of C A Scrymsour Nichol. Her first novel, The Perfect World: A Romance of Strange People and Strange Places (fixup 1922), a confabulation complicatedly akin to the Scientific Romance, is thought by E F Bleiler almost certainly to consist of two separate magazine novels here published sequentially; however, as Scrymsour clearly attempted to weave their plots together, we designate the outcome a Fixup. In the first main sequence the two young gentlemen protagonists are transported from a company town dominated by their family coalmine into an Underground cave system where an oligarchic Lost Race of dwarf Israelites – exiled after an Old Testament quarrel – has lived for 3000 years and grown horns. After they finally emerge in an Alternate History version of Australia, after missing World War One, the consequences of which are about to cause the End of the World, they escape in the nick of time with their uncle – who is responsible for the Invention of a suitable space-ready Airship – to Jupiter, where a similar oligarchy, this time pre-Adamic (see Adam and Eve), subjects the main protagonist – as had happened already underground – to erotic inducements. He marries the relevant princess and together they rule Jupiter in peace. In dealing with the sinlessness of the Jovians, Scrymsour ineffectively prefigured the work of C S Lewis. The Bridge of Distances (1924) is a Reincarnation fantasy.
An incorrect identification of Scrymsour as Scrymgeour appears to result from a 1925 misreading of the name by the New York Times [see links below, especially the second]. [JC/SH]
Ella Mary Scrymsour-Nichol, née Ella Mary Campbell-Robertson
born Battersea, London: 25 December 1888
died Frant, East Sussex: 26 May 1962
works
- The Perfect World: A Romance of Strange People and Strange Places (London: Eveleigh Nash and Grayson, 1922) [fixup: hb/uncredited]
- The Bridge of Distances (London: Philip Allan, 1924) [hb/Stan Terry]
- Sheila Crerar, Psychic Detective (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2006) [coll: hb/Jason Van Hollander]
links
- Ella M Scrymsour by Steve Holland
- Ella M Scrymsour revisited by Steve Holland
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Project Gutenberg
- Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry