A rip-roaring and frankly slightly bonkers tale of derring-do from 1897; the shadow of war looms and foreign spies abound. Scientist and inventor Paul Gilchrist finds himself embroiled in a devilish plot devised by "fiends in human shape", culminating in a breathtaking race against time for his very survival...
Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me:
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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 A Race with the Sun
01:01:32 Credits, thanks and further listening
L. T. Meade (Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith, 1844-1914) was a prolific author of mystery and suspense stories, dominating the periodicals of the 1890s and early 1900s. Born in County Cork, Ireland, she began writing fiction at the age of 17 and had a highly productive career, publishing almost 300 books in her lifetime. Meade married Alfred Toulmin Smith in London, in 1879, when she was in her mid-30s. She was an advocate of feminist causes, and as a solo writer became most associated with adventure stories for girls and young people, of which the most famous was ‘A World of Girls’, published in 1886.
However, she was also much associated with mystery and suspense stories, and her name appeared frequently in the periodicals of the 1890s and early 1900s. Interestingly, in this genre she often wrote in collaboration with medical practitioners, who apparently supplied the scientific details which underpin many of the plots of her stories. Her most frequent collaborators were Robert Eustace (Dr. Eustace Robert Barton, 1854-1943) and Clifford Halifax. A short biographical sketch of Meade and a discussion of the identity of Robert Eustace can be found in the introduction to my video of 'The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel', available on this channel: • The Mystery of the Fel...
"Clifford Halifax M.D." was the pen name of Dr Edgar Beaumont (1860-1921), who maintained a general practice in Crystal Palace, south London. He collaborated with L. T. Meade on several series of stories which ran in the Strand Magazine in the 1890s, most notably the 'Stories from the Diary of a Doctor' (1893-96), in which the character of Dr Clifford Halifax recounted episodes from his medical life, and 'The Adventures of a Man of Science' (1896-97), which featured the exploits of Paul Gilchrist, scientist and adventurer.
According to his obituary in The Lancet, Clifford Halifax's main contribution to the partnership was to come up with the plot and basic storyline, while L. T. Meade did the writing. Based on 'A Race to the Sun', he clearly had quite an imagination!
'A Race to the Sun' first appeared in The Strand Magazine in January 1897, with illustrations by J. Finnemore.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2019 & 2023.
2 июн 2024
