Possible and Impossible Worlds Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

The Life and Astonishing Adventures of John Daniel (1770)

September 7, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

The melancholy Occasion of his Travels, His Shipwreck with one Companion on a desolate Island. Their way of Life. His accidental discovery of a Woman for his Companion. Their peopling the Island and also a Description of a most surprising Eagle, invented by his Son Jacob, on which he flew to the Moon, with some Account of its Inhabitants. His return, and accidental Fall into the Habitation of a Sea Monster, with whom he lived two Years. His further Excursions in Search of England. His Residence in Lapland, and Travels to Norway, from whence he arrived at Aldborough, and farther Transactions till his Death, in 1711. Aged 97.

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A Voyage from Pole to Pole by way of the Center of the Earth (1721)

July 16, 2012

An Account of a Voyage from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole by way of the Center of the Earth. With the description of that perilous Passage, & of the marvelous & astonishing things that were discovered beneath the Antarctic Pole. WITH FIGURES. Amsterdam M. DCC. XXI TABLE OF CHAPTERS. I. Departure of the Author from Amsterdam for Greenland; how the Author & his Companions began to realize that they were nearing the dreadful maelstrom which is under the Arctic Pole; description of the maelstrom. II. How the Vessel was swallowed up at the center of the maelstrom; […]

W. M. Stannard, “Mr. Corndropper’s Hired Man” (1900)

July 8, 2012

Mr. Corndropper’s Hired Man. (A Companion to “Ely’s Automatic Housemaid.”) BY W. M. STANNARD. _____ THERE was a mild sensation at the East Slowcombe railway station when a stranger, bearing a two-gallon can, carefully crated, stepped off the 3.30 accommodation, and there were many speculations hazarded as to his identity, business and destination, but, without stopping to question or exchange words with any of the waiting crowd, he stepped across the platform to where Farmer Corndropper was waiting with his gray mare and buggy. He handed the fanner a letter, stepped into the buggy and was driven slowly away. Without […]

Elizabeth W. Bellamy, “Ely’s Automatic Housemaid” (1899)

July 8, 2012

Ely’s Automatic Housemaid. BY ELIZABETH W. BELLAMY. _____ IN order for a man to have faith in such an invention, he would have to know Harrison Ely. For Harrison Ely was a genius. I had known him in college, a man amazingly dull in Latin and Greek and even in English, but with ideas of his own that could not be expressed in language. His bent was purely mechanical, and found expression in innumerable ingenious contrivances to facilitate the study to which he had no inclination. His self-acting lexicon-holder was a matter of admiring wonder to his classmates, but it […]

Edward Page Mitchell, “The Ablest Man In The World” (1879)

July 6, 2012

The Ablest Man In The World. By Edward PageMitchell. 1879 [Originally published without attribution in the New York Sun May 4, 1879] It may or may not be remembered that in 1878 General Ignatieff spent several weeks of July at the Badischer Hof in Baden. The public journals gave out that he visited the watering-place for the benefit of his health, said to be much broken by protracted anxiety and responsibility in the service of the Czar. But everybody knew that Ignatieff was just then out of favor at St. Petersburg, and that his absence from the centres of […]

The Symmesonian Letters and Other Tales of the Hollow Earth

July 6, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

This collection of short fiction and satire about “Symmes’ Hole” is intended as a supplement to the archive on the Hollow Earth theories of John Cleves Symmes and includes texts destined for publication in Principles and Explorations of the Mundane System. “Symmesonian,” Cincinnati Literary Gazette (Feb 28, 1824): 66 Cincinnati Literary Gazette, Mar 6, 1824. p. 76 Cincinnati Literary Gazette, Mar 20, 1824. p. 90 W. L. Alden, “Symmes’ Hole,” Stone 17 no. 5 (October, 1898): 343–346. Symmesonian. No. 1 Having been informed, Mr. Editor, that your countrymen always require of every person when first introduced to them, a regular […]