 First edition | |
| Author | Philip George Chadwick |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Hutchinson[1] |
Publication date | 1939 [Paperback edition with introduction by Brian W Aldiss, 1992] |
| Publication place | England |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-14-017060-3 |
The Death Guard is the only published novel of the English author Philip George Chadwick (1893 in Batley, Yorkshire – 1955 in Brighton, Sussex). Although the author is virtually unknown to the wider public, his work has received attention from literary scholars.[2] The novel contains many themes later developed by L. Ron Hubbard and James Blish.[2] Chadwick was a political thinker with socialist tendencies, a Fabian and subsequently an Independent and a disciple of H. G. Wells.
Legend has it that H.G. Wells used to refer to this book as one of the greatest he had ever read.[3] It was written shortly after World War I, but by the time it was picked up for publication, World War II was already underway and allegedly, Chadwick had been killed in combat, though the 1992 paperback states that he died in 1955. To complicate matters even further, the printing house that was handling the first run of the novel was bombed in an air raid, and almost all copies were destroyed. Consequently, most science fiction fans wrote off The Death Guard as pure myth, a figment of Wells's prodigious imagination,[3] and for years it was considered a lost novel. In 1992 it was republished, with an introduction by Brian Aldiss.[4]
The Death Guard was cited in Karl Edward Wagner's "The Thirteen Best Science Fiction Horror Novels" [5] and Ramsey Campbell's "Thirteen Novels on the Edge of Horror".[4]
- ^ The Death Guard. Penguin. 10 November 2008. OL 22307621M. Retrieved 19 September 2011.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - ^ a b Nicholls 1979, p. 109.
- ^ a b Lurie, Rob (3 December 2001). "Darren Callahan: Walking Anachronism". The Attic Review. p. 3. Retrieved 19 September 2011.
- ^ a b Amy Wallace, Del Howison, and Scott Bradley, The Book of Lists: Horror. HarperPaperbacks, ISBN 0061537268 (p.245)
- ^ N. G. Christakos, "Three By Thirteen: The Karl Edward Wagner Lists" in Black Prometheus: A Critical Study of Karl Edward Wagner, ed. Benjamin Szumskyj, Gothic Press 2007. ISBN 978-0913045145