M. P. Shiel
Matthew Phipps Shiel, often known simply as M. P. Shiel, was a notable West Indian author born on July 21, 1865, in Montserrat. He was the son of a shopkeeper and a Methodist preacher and hailed from a family with a diverse heritage. Shiel's early life was marked by a claimed, though unrecognized, kingship over the tiny island of Redonda. He later moved to London, where he pursued studies at King's College and developed fluency in multiple languages, which led to work as an interpreter. His literary career began in earnest with the publication of his first work in 1895, drawing inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe.
Shiel gained prominence for his speculative fiction, particularly within the "yellow peril" subgenre, exploring themes of future conflicts and societal concerns. Notable works include "The Yellow Danger" and "The Purple Cloud," the latter being an early example of apocalyptic science fiction. Despite his prolific writing and initial acclaim, Shiel faced financial struggles in his later years and ultimately died in poverty on February 14, 1947. His complex legacy includes recognition for both his imaginative storytelling and the controversial themes present in some of his works.
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M. P. Shiel
Author
- Born: July 21, 1865
- Birthplace: Monserrat, West Indies
- Died: February 14, 1947
Biography
Matthew Phipps Shiell (who dropped the final “l” from his name when he began publishing) was born on July 21, 1865 on the West Indian island of Monserrat. He was the tenth child and only son born to Matthew Dowdy Shiell, a shopkeeper and Methodist preacher of Irish descent. His mother was of mixed black and white heritage. Shiel grew up on the islands and, according to popular legend, was at age fifteen anointed king of Redonda, a tiny part of the West Indian Island chain, although the British government never acknowledged his claim and appropriated the island for its own use.
Shiel was later sent to London, and obtained his degree at King’s College. He was fluent in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Polish, and Spanish, which secured him work briefly as an interpreter to the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography. He taught mathematics for a year at Derbyshire and briefly enrolled as a student at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital before discovering he had no stomach for a medical career. Shiel had first read the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe while a teenager and in 1895 published Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk, a collection of three stories modeled on Poe’s detective fiction. Acclaim for the book helped launch his literary career. The following year saw his first novel, The Rajah’s Sapphire, and Shapes in the Fire, a collection of macabre stories redolent with the influence of Poe but also steeped in the decadent excesses of the contemporary bohemian literary scene.
Shiel’s literary colleagues included Arthur Machen, Edgar Jepson, Ernest Dowson, and Oscar Wilde, and the flamboyance of the aesthetic movement with which they were all associated would become a trademark of his style. Shiel began turning out highly speculative and often controversial tales of future war and disaster. The Yellow Danger (1898) and The Dragon (1913; also known as The Yellow Peril), both of which projected world wars fought with Asian aggressors, were seminal works of “yellow peril fiction,” a literary subgenre that would become popular in pulp fiction of the early twentieth century. The Lord of the Sea (1901), about a Jewish takeover of Great Britain, later earned Shiel a reputation as an anti-Semite. The Purple Cloud (1901), about the decimation of Earth’s population by toxic gases, became a landmark of early apocalyptic science fiction (it was adapted loosely for film in 1958 as The World, the Flesh, and the Devil).
Shiel wrote prolifically, under his own name and as a ghostwriter. His output diminished during World War I, at which time he worked in the British censorship office. He enjoyed his greatest renown with the publication of How the Old Woman Got Home(1927), a complex novel of ideas, and Dr. Krasinski’s Secret (1929), a melodramatic murder tale, both of which were reprinted widely in the United States. Despite his energetic output, Shiel was financially strained in later life and was awarded a civil pension in 1934. He died in penury on February 14, 1947.