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Today I want to share with you a little-known fantasy, from 1923: The Ship that Sailed to Mars, written and illustrated by William Timlin, an architect born in England who lived and practiced in South Africa. It’s his first and only book. In my 25 years working for the pre-eminent rare book dealer in North America, this is one of my all-time favorites—and a book I’m pretty sure I would never have come across if it weren’t for my job. It’s one of those neglected, underappreciated classics that I hope to profile and feature on this channel.
Published in 1923, The Ship that Sailed to Mars is the product of an era: at the beginning of the 20th century, deluxe illustrated classics, printed in limited numbers and signed by their famous illustrators, were a staple of publishers and booksellers. Let’s call it the Edwardian era, or the Gilded Age, roughly 1905-1920s. Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, William Heath Robinson, Willy Pogany, Howard Pyle; even Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth produced their own versions of these deluxe, lavishly illustrated “gift books.” But most of these were ILLUSTRATORS, first and foremost, and most of the texts they illustrated were not their own, but renowned classics of world literature, and generally of the sort of lit that, if not aimed directly at children, could be read and understood by children, while appreciated by adults. So it’s even more special that Timlin wrote—or “told,” as the title page states—the text that he illustrated, or “pictured.”
As with so many fantasies, this one started off in 1921 as a story the author told to his young son—named Billy, in this case. The craft of the story is impressive as well. Each “chapter” is limited to a single page, that pairs with one image, for a total of 48 pages—finely rendered in Timlin’s owb calligraphy—with 48 color plates. They’re so intertwined that it’s hard to know which came first, which inspired which: did Timlin tell the story to his son, and then illustrate the words, as we typically think of “illustrations”? Or did he come up with a striking image, and then shape the words to fit the picture into the ongoing story?
The story is divided into three parts. Part One is the building of the ship. Here we are introduced to our protagonist: the Old Man. Right off the bat, this is unlike most stories that start off being told to a child. Great opening: “Although it was difficult to believe, the Old Man had not always been old, and in his dim, forgotten youth, he had said, ‘I will go to Mars; sailing by way of the Moon, and the more friendly planets.’” Of course, those around him—some of them Scientists and Astronomers—tell him it can’t be done, that Mars is too far away, “thirty thousand miles.” (Nice try, but Mars is more like 140 million miles away from Earth.) This is one of the ways we know this is a fantasy—I mean, he tells us as much on the title page—and not science fiction, though some want to lump it into Science Fiction, simply because it has “Mars” in the title.
“He spent his long lifetime in a sleepy office in a dull, dark street; passing his waking hours in strange dreams, or poring over weird and ancient books, and always and ever planning a ship to sail to Mars.” The Old Man believes in fairies, and it is the fairies who finally come to his aid, and help him design and build his ship. In this first part, we get our best views of the fairies, with their pointy ears, bald heads, frock coats, and serious, frowny faces. I love the black cat that makes a couple of appearances as well.
Part Two is the Journey to Mars, with several stops at a variety of planets along the way—some friendly, some actually quite hostile, and others allegorical, where myths of Earth are given happy endings: Medea enjoys a peaceful retirement, Icarus is alive and serves as their tour guide, and Orpheus and Eurydice live happily reunited. We travel to the Pirates’ Planet, visit the Seven Sisters, and pass near the Sorrowful Planet—foreshadowing the sorrow that darkens the third, and final part.
And this is what makes this book so special, what elevates it above the merely whimsical or twee (despite the fairies)—there is that touch of darkness that’s so critical for a fantasy to be truly great (in my opinion). Not just in the monsters and the threats that the crew faces—and there are some great ones here—but in the touch of melancholy, the hint of shadow at the fringes of so many of the images, even down to the unusual dark green of the paper Timlin’s pages were pasted onto.
Then we come to the last and longest part: the ship’s arrival on Mars, and the reception by the Martians—who, it turns out, are a group of fairies who first fled from Earth to the Moon, and from the Moon to Mars, when the Moon became too cold.
“And near the shoulder of the King stood a slim Princess, whose dark eyes gladdened as they looked upon the Old Man.” Of course there is a princess—what fairy tale or fable is complete without one? And, of course, she is beautiful. That her eyes “gladden” at seeing the Old Man suggests that before that moment, they were saddened. In Timlin’s rendering she is stunningly beautiful, of course, but not smiling, and those dark eyes do seem to hide a secret sadness, a certain melancholy.
Nevertheless, Mars “was a place of supreme happiness,” we are told. “The Old Man spent much of his leisure for many days wandering along its terraces and up and around the great central spire, or viewing the treasures with which the place overflowed, and sometimes with him went the Princess.” The Old Man writes in his log—we get a glimpse of but a page—“All are happy, although I heard a doleful hint of a horror called the Thunder City, and saw a single black-cloaked figure brooding alone amongst the crowd.” This is the Prince—the Princess’s betrothed. Which would explain her melancholy.
She takes the Old Man to her chamber, and tells him that long ago “a Fairy more venturesome than the rest” had discovered the Iron Hills and the thunder there that produces Misery, and he had fallen in love with this strange, new sensation. “To others he imparted the knowledge of his discovery, and thus it was, that during the past many had gone forth, and the strangeness of Misery had entranced them, and none had ever returned. So Sorrow had almost come near to the City, and the Princess was almost sad, for, but a short time before, the Prince to whom she should ere now have been wed, had stolen away, and was even now ruling in this dreadful City, and worshipping within the blasphemous Temple raised in honor of the Thunder.” [emphasis added]
I feel for the Old Man. He leaves behind Earth, sets sail for the planet of his fantasy, of his fancy—and finds the beautiful Princess. And she is a beauty. They’re spending some time together, walking around the city. She takes him to her chamber, even. But her heart is with another, the somber, dark prince, in love with Sorrow, who has gone to live in the Thunder City, leaving her behind. Since the Old Man has told her of terrible storms on Earth, she asks him to “bring his earthly lore to her aid,” to rid the Iron Hills and the Thunder City of its storms. To take away the Sorrow, and bring her Prince back to her.
And so we have a second quest, this one undertaken by the Old Man alone—though some fairies do come to his aid along the way. His human ingenuity devises a lightning rod to absorb the lightning—and tricks the Prince into allowing him to build it. “In the center of the City’s square, the inhabitants of that miserable place were gathered round a deep, round hole, metal lined, wherein the foot of the Tower was fixed. Then, slowly, amid the crashing of the Thunder’s deep reverberations, the Tower was hauled up by straining ropes, till it stood erect, its sides and million points shimmering and fairylike.” This enormous lightning rod does indeed rid the Thunder City of its thunder, successfully buries all its sorrow into the earth. (Or into the mars, maybe that’s how you say it on Mars.) Smiles replace scowls on the fairies in Thunder City. “And the Old Man in their midst beamed with pride.”
Perhaps that’s the more appropriate role for the Old Man to play: to reunite the younger lovers. But I can’t help feeling a little sorry for him. The main character going on a quest—like a main character—but then relegated to the sidelines. Erecting his own giant, glowing, phallus-like tower to draw the lightning down—a monument to his own frustration, perhaps? He’s happy enough to stay on, though—no desire to return to Earth, to return home—Mars is his new home. After the wedding, “All the evening, in the midst of all the merriment, the Princess held the Old Man’s hand in gratitude that could find no words, and it seemed to him that here was a land where a man might live gladly, and for ever.”
As you might expect in the work of an architect, the buildings are phenomenal. From imposing castles with lofty spires, down to humble shops and dwellings, the detail is fantastic.
But his creature design is great, too.
There are pages reminiscent of Miyazaki’s Nausicaa—and I swear the cap flying from the Old Man’s head as the dragon he’s riding launches into flight is a short-hand for sudden, out-of-control movement that appears with great regularity in Moebius’s comics. And check out those fashionable slippers!
It's a shame that it’s the only book Timlin ever produced. He was working on a sequel, The Building of the Fairy City—but by then he had a number of fans, readers and collectors, friends and family alike, that demanded that he sell them the originals even as he worked on them. He agreed to this, on the understanding that the paintings would be returned to him at a later date so he could make a book out of them—but, of course, once they were out of his possession, the owners were reluctant to part with them. So he figured he would just start over, and redo the missing pieces—but then he died, at the age of 51, of pneumonia. Tantalizing glimpses of this second book are out there, but in the end, we’re left to content ourselves with this unique, sui generis fantasy.
The 2011 Dover publication is by far the superior reprint, in terms of material, fidelity to the size, design, color of the paper, color of the prints, and so on. (Calla Edition is the name of the publisher, but it’s a subsidiary of Dover, the famed reprint publisher.) Not sure how much Dover had to do with it, but it feels like the book an experienced publisher of reprints would produce. There is a 1993 reproduction published by Stonewall, but the quality of the reproduction of the illustrations is not as good. They seemed to try to increase the contrast, at the expense of Timlin’s rich, glowing colors--and they vary the size of the illustrations, presumably to fit more on fewer pages.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief tour of one of my all-time favorite books, period, fantasy or no. Is The Ship that Sailed to Mars new to you? Or is this a title you’ve already come across? I'm genuinely curious--leave a comment, let me know!
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