David Lindsay

David Lindsay was a Scottish author who was born on 3 March 1876 in Lewisham, United Kingdom. He became famous for his novel in 1920, which was entitled, 'A Voyage to Arcturus'.

When 'A Voyage to Arcturus' was published, it did not achieve success, selling less than 600 copies, but in 1971, William J. Holloway produced 'Arcturus' as a 35mm feature film. It was the first film to be supported by a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and has lately been re-released. Harold Bloom had also been curious about Lindsay's career and life, to the extent of publishing a novel about him called 'The Flight to Lucifer'. He considered it an homage, a Bloomian misprision, and a deep revision of 'A Voyage to Arcturus'. However, Bloom confessed that his late imitation is overwhelmed by Lindsay's great original.

Lindsay's work became increasingly available after being out-of-print for several decades, and made him possibly the foremost Scottish fantasist in the twentieth century. 'A Voyage to Arcturus' has been identified as the leading 'underground' novel of the twentieth century by the philosopher and critic Colin Wilson. It combines science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy in exploring the nature of evil and good, and their connection with existence.

David Lindsay's simple vision of 'true reality' appears to have been influenced by Scandinavian mythology. The secret of his apparent strangeness as a writer lies within his metaphysical beliefs. Like the gnostics, Lindsay seems to have considered the 'real' world as a fantasy, which must be discarded in order to distinguish the genuine 'truth'.