Beynon (John, pseud. John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris, aka John Wyndham) The Secret People
£795
London, Newnes, [1935].
First edition, first impression. 8vo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 2/6.
A science fiction adventure that imagines a hidden civilization beneath the Sahara Desert. The novel, set in the “future” year of 1964 (as projected from 1935), begins with British playboy Mark Sunnet and his companion Margaret Lawn taking a private rocket-powered pleasure craft on a tour over North Africa. Disaster strikes when their rocket plane malfunctions and crash-lands in a newly formed body of water – the “Sahara Sea.” (In this speculative future, engineers have flooded a portion of the Sahara to create an inland sea.) Mark and Margaret survive the crash only to be sucked into a cavern through a whirlpool. Regaining consciousness, they find themselves in a vast underground world, captive to a mysterious race of pygmies who dwell in a network of cavern.
The Secret People was published under the name “John Beynon,” an early pseudonym used by John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris – better known later simply as John Wyndham. This was Wyndham’s first (or potentially second) novel, written in his twenties.
In stock
Internally very good; cloth somewhat damp speckled; jacket with a few closed tears, some rubbing, backed onto printed paper.
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