Background
George Griffith was born on August 20, 1857, in Plymouth, United Kingdom. He was a son of George Alfred Jones, a clergyman, and Jeanette Henry (Capinster) Jones.
(Written in the prophetic technological vein of Jules Vern...)
Written in the prophetic technological vein of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, Griffith's epic masterpiece tells the story of a Great War, which never was.
https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Revolution-Tale-Coming-Terror/dp/1975860772/?tag=2022091-20
1893
("Olga Romanoff: The Syren of the Skies" picks up the stor...)
"Olga Romanoff: The Syren of the Skies" picks up the story of The Brotherhood of Freedom, a story of air warfare, in which Socialists, Anarchists and Nihilists defeat Capitalism. The team is led by a brilliant Russian and his daughter, Natasha.
https://www.amazon.com/Olga-Romanoff-Syren-sequel-Revolution/dp/1482775085
1894
educator explorer journalist writer
George Griffith was born on August 20, 1857, in Plymouth, United Kingdom. He was a son of George Alfred Jones, a clergyman, and Jeanette Henry (Capinster) Jones.
In 1861, George's family settled down in Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester, where he received a sporadic education from his father. He immersed himself in his father's extensive library, which contained works by Charles Dickens, Walter Scott and Jules Verne. Following his father's death in January 1872, Griffith was sent to a private school in nearby Southport, where he spent fifteen months before becoming an apprentice sailor.
In 1887, George received a diploma from the College of Preceptors (present-day The Chartered College of Teaching).
In 1873, after studying at a private school in Southport for some time, George became an apprentice sailor on a Liverpool merchant vessel. Some time later, having abandoned his ship in Australia, Griffith earned enough money to travel the world by performing manual labor, and he continued to travel until he neared the age of twenty.
Returning home to England in 1877, Griffith accepted the position of a teacher at Worthing College, where he worked until 1883 and simultaneously submitted his writing to various newspapers. He eventually saw his early poems published under the pseudonym Lara in the compilations "Poems" in 1883 and "The Dying Faith" in 1884. In 1883, George began working as an instructor at the Bolton Grammar School in Lancashire (present-day Bolton School). He left his teaching position in 1887 after he passed the College of Preceptors Examination.
In 1888, George moved to London and the same year, he was appointed a journalist at a newspaper, a post he held till 1889. Sued for libel, Griffith attempted to defend himself, but was unsuccessful. The newspaper he worked for folded, and he found himself without a job until C. Arthur Pearson hired him to address envelopes until he proved himself useful as a writer. This experience, combined with the contacts he made at Pearson's Weekly, where he worked as a staff writer from 1890 till 1899, would be valuable to Griffith as he transferred his talents to fiction.
Turning to fiction proved to be a wise career move for Griffith. He found his first success with "The Angel of the Revolution" in 1893. Classified as a scientific romance, the novel tells the tale of a war, waged in the future with fantastic weapons. The same battle tactics, that entertained Griffith's readers, would later be used with horrific results in actual combat. By weaving his own opinions about society and the destruction of society into his fiction, Griffith managed to broach these volatile topics without losing his audience. As Griffith's publisher, Pearson also profited from the success of "The Angel of the Revolution". The novel was first serialized anonymously in Pearson's Weekly, then came out in book form with Griffith named as the author. The book was just as popular as the serialized story, so Pearson proceeded to purchase the rights to Griffith's serial work.
Next, Pearson's Weekly published the serialized version of Griffith's "Olga Romanoff" (1894) under the title "The Syren of the Skies". This was the continuation of "The Angel of the Revolution". Set in the year 2030, five generations after "The Angel of the Revolution", this sequel focuses on the consequences of threatening the peace, achieved in the earlier novel. Since "The Syren of the Skies" was set still further into the future, Griffith had an even greater opportunity to stretch his imagination. In 1894, "A Heroine of the Slums" was released. The publication of this collection of early works led Griffith to perform a publicity stunt, which Pearson promoted to the best of his ability. The premise of the stunt was for Griffith to travel around the world in less than seventy-six days. Elizabeth Bisland, an American author, had traveled the globe in seventy-six days and gained notoriety by completing her journey a full four days less, than the amount of time, dictated by Jules Verne's famous novel. Pearson and Griffith hoped to generate a similar amount of press, when Griffith broke Bisland's record.
In January of 1895, Pearson's Weekly began running the serialized version of "Valdar the Oft-Born", which was classified as an historical romance. The novel's protagonist is a Norse demigod, who loses favor with Odin and must turn into a mortal. Throughout the novel, Valdar and his lover are reincarnated over and over during the course of the ages. The novel's central theme of reincarnation was fashionable in contemporary literature, and one of the most widely recognized novels of this genre, Edwin Arnold's "The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician" (1890), may have served as a model for Griffith. However, such similarities did not diminish popular regard for Griffith's novel; imitation between authors was widespread, and Griffith's own works were often mimicked by other authors. "Valdar the Oft-Born" was different from Griffith's earlier works in that it did not include any scientific explanation, making it a completely fantastic work. Although Griffith's tale was well received, it did not eclipse Arnold's work.
Beginning in the latter half of the 1890's, Griffith found, that he had a rival for Pearson's favor in the person of H. G. Wells. While Wells was likely inspired by Griffith's work, he soon surpassed Griffith with novels, that were well written, as well as fantastic. Works, such as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897) and "The War of the Worlds" (1898), were held in higher esteem, than stories, found in the same magazines by other authors, including Griffith.
After being sent to South Africa as a correspondent for Pearson's Weekly, Griffith penned his novel, "The Romance of Golden Star", in 1897. Griffith used Peruvian Incas as material for this work, which considers the theory of suspended animation. Although George was best known for his work in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, he also produced detective stories and nonfiction travel works. However, Wells continued to grow in popularity, finally becoming Pearson's favorite science fiction writer. To add injury to insult, Pearson ceased releasing Griffith's fiction in book form, leaving the novelist without a publisher. While Pearson promised, that Griffith would be named editor of a new magazine, the magazine was never put into circulation. Despite these setbacks, Griffith continued to write for Pearson, producing "The Gold-Finder", a serialized tale about an invention, used to find gold, in 1898. In 1899, he wrote another work about the war in the future, titled "The Great Pirate Syndicate". A collection of Griffith's short stories, "Gambles with Destiny", was published the same year, in 1899, by F. V. White, and it is believed by some historians, that Griffith's story "The Great Crellin Comet" used the first ten-to-zero countdown.
Griffith's novel "A Honeymoon in Space" was published in 1901. Popular with readers, it incorporated elements of science and fantasy into the story of an inventor and his wife, who travel through space on their honeymoon. By 1903, Griffith had returned to writing about wars in the future, publishing "The Lake of Gold", "The World Masters" and "The Stolen Submarine: A Tale of the Russo-Japanese War" in quick succession. In 1904, Griffith again switched themes, writing "A Criminal Croesus", about a lost race, discovered underground. Next, Griffith imagined the creation of a mind-reading machine in "A Mayfair Magician". Finally, he dictated his last work, "The Lord of Labour", as he lay dying. It was not published until 1911, five years after Griffith's death.
Even though Griffith wrote novels similar to those of the highly successful H. G. Wells, he did not manage to attain the same high standing as Wells in literary circles. It is possible, that Griffith's popularity was hurt by the emergence of Wells, as well as by his own alcoholism. Also, Griffith was so prolific a writer, that he may have sacrificed quality for quantity in his later novels. However, regardless of his popularity in relation to Wells, Griffith's novels remain noteworthy because of the vastly imaginative and exhilarating ideas he put into his work.
("Olga Romanoff: The Syren of the Skies" picks up the stor...)
1894(Written in the prophetic technological vein of Jules Vern...)
1893George was a man of utopian socialist views.
Physical Characteristics: George suffered from cirrhosis of the liver.
In February of 1887, Griffith married Elizabeth (Brierly) Griffith, who would eventually bear him three children - two sons and a daughter. Their son, Alan Arnold Griffith, was the originator of Griffith crack theory.