A Voyage to Arcturus

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay was first published in 1920. It combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence.

A Voyage to Arcturus is an intensely inventive work of the imagination, set in a wild and wholly original fantasy world. It proved a seminal influence on J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis (who called it the “real father” of his Space Trilogy), it was one of the first books to be reprinted in the cele­brated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series of the late 1960s, it has been adapted for radio, theatre, and film (in a 1971 version by William Holloway), and it has inspired the work of musicians, composers, and artists. It remains one of the strangest works of twentieth century literature.

—Murray Ewing

On the most obvious level, the profoundly disturbing effect of David Lindsay’s metaphysical fantasy results in part from the extraordinary fecundity of the author’s imagination. The abun­dance and variety of outlandish plants, animals, landscapes, and weather condi­tions on the planet Tormance convey the impres­sion of a world to which the laws of nature as known on Earth are simply irrelevant. Against this dauntingly alien back­ground, the behaviour of the characters, who in most cases are logical extensions of recognizable human types, stand out with discor­dant familiarity.

—J. Derrick McClure