The earliest mentions of fabled lost Atlantis were, as you know1, in two essays by Plato, Timaeus and Critias. The context of these mentions suggests that Plato invented Atlantis out of whole cloth, as an illustration of certain philosophical points. However, many have wondered if perhaps Plato had some real-world basis for his Atlantis. Others, Ignatius L. Donnelly for example, have firmly insisted that Plato did.
Cynics might object that any mentions of Atlantis after Plato wrote were clearly derived from his essays; there are no mentions of Atlantis in other contemporary sources or in any previous sources. There is no physical evidence of an island such as Plato described or of any Atlantean empire.
And yet… authorities such as Donnelley, Blavatsky, and Pournelle have asserted that Atlantis was real. Shouldn’t this count? Why, if we doubted the historical reality of Atlantis, we might as well disbelieve in the historical reality of Oz, Winnemac, and Narnia!
Archaeological questions aside, the central idea of Atlantis—an ancient, highly advanced civilization whose stupendous achievements could not in the end save it from doom—has been an inspiration to many authors. Consider the following five works.
The Lost Continent by C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne (1899)
Although of lowly birth, Phorenice is brilliant, opportunistic, and lucky. Through fortuitous adoption, martial prowess, and a determined disregard for tradition, she has seated herself quite firmly on Atlantis’ throne. She is that great land’s first empress. Alas, Phorenice’s hubris may well doom Atlantis, by civil war or divine wrath.
An empress needs a consort. Phorenice makes the cold-blooded calculation that Deucalion, paragon of Atlantean virtue, would be an ideal consort. Good news for Atlantis: Deucalion could guide Phorenice away from certain disaster. Better news for Atlantis: Phorenice, to her surprise, falls in love with Deucalion. True, Deucalion is in love with someone else… but that is a trivial matter easily resolved by ordering Deucalion to murder the woman he loves. What could possibly go wrong?
Hyne’s novel is notable for two things. First, it’s a very early example of a common Atlantean trope: teasing readers with the possibility that Atlantis will be saved from certain doom, then ending with Atlantis’ watery apocalypse. Second, the novel’s framing sequence features the most appalling depiction of careless Victorian-era desecration of irreplaceable relics that I’ve ever read.
Lost Legacy by Robert A. Heinlein (1941)
While hiking with his chums on Mount Shasta, Dr. Philip Huxley breaks his leg. Things look dire; Phil could die of exposure before his friends can bring aid. Fortuitously, a stranger appears to provide Phil with much-needed medical care.
The stranger reveals himself to be Ambrose Bierce. He claims to be a member of a secret society of psychic adepts whose arts hark back to ancient Atlantis. Phil and company would be perfect recruits.2 The catch? There are those who do not want humanity to regain its lost godlike powers, people who will go to great lengths to prevent such a development. By joining Bierce, the young Americans sign up to take part in a war for humanity’s soul.
A question I blame Alec Nevala-Lee’s Hugo-finalist book Astounding for making me ponder: was Heinlein channeling the views of noted rocket scientist/occultist author Jack Parsons? Or was RAH simply drawing on the occultism in which everyone seems to have been steeped back then?
“Exile of Atlantis” by Robert E. Howard (19673)
Long before Atlantis was glorious, it was a patchwork of barbarian tribes, each more violent and superstitious than the next. Kull, lone survivor of his people, had the good fortune to be adopted by Gor-na’s tribe. Kull has the physical prowess to be a great man of the tribe… if only Kull could somehow smother his impious skepticism concerning his new tribe’s manifestly absurd customs and beliefs.
Matters come to a head when Kull discovers a young woman is to be burnt alive for violating marriage law. The future King of Valusia faces a choice: do nothing about the cruel and unjust execution and be accepted by society, or act and face exile.
Kull is in some senses very much like Conan, with one very important difference. Kull is far more introspective than Conan. As a result, Kull is often far more miserable than Conan, plagued as Kull is by perplexing philosophical dilemmas. The moral is probably that you can never go wrong overthinking things.4
Operation Time Search by Andre Norton (1967)
Photographer Ray Osborne reveals a heretofore unestablished use for Hargreaves and Fordham’s time-viewing technology when Osborne blunders into one of their tests. Osborne is transported to an old-growth forest unfamiliar to him. Soon after that, Osborne is captured by Atlanteans.
The ancient world in which Osborne finds himself is divided between virtuous Mu and very much not virtuous Atlantis. Worse, Atlantis now has the means to win the long struggle against Mu. Can American pluck and a near-total lack of operational security on the part of Atlantis save the day? Or, like Plato’s Atlantis, will Atlantean hubris ensure catastrophe?
It’s not clear whether Norton’s Atlantis is Plato’s, and therefore in the distant past, or a realm in a parallel universe that happens to be very similar to Plato’s Atlantis. What’s even less clear is exactly what happens at the end of the novel. Did Osborne save Atlantis and Mu from immersion, somehow without affecting history? Or did something even less likely happen?
The Dancer From Atlantis by Poul Anderson (1971)
A malfunctioning time machine clearly out of warranty scoops up American Duncan Reid, Kievan Russian Oleg, Hun Uldin, and Minoan Erissa from their native eras, and deposits them in the past. The time traveler who accidentally time-napped the quartet barely has a chance to choke out a surprisingly detailed infodump before perishing of his wounds. The four are, it seems, trapped in the past.
Erissa comes from a time closer to the one where she ended up. She can tell where they are: not too far from an island known to fellow Bronze Agers as Atlantis. As to when they are? The days immediately before volcanic disaster snuffed out Atlantis and upended civilization across the Mediterranean.
Is history fixed? Or can Duncan and the others do anything about a foreordained calamity that underlines how ephemeral everything good and valuable is? I regret to report that Poul Anderson in his most gloomy period is not the author to turn to for what Tolkien termed “eucatastrophe.” Still, The Dancer from Atlantis is more upbeat than Anderson’s “The Pugilist.”
Factual or not5, Atlantis has been an inspiration to many authors. The above is only a small sample. I didn’t even mention the role Atlantis played in the Perry Rhodan novels or the eyebrow-raising Jane Gaskell novel Some Summer Lands. Perhaps you have Atlantean favorites not mentioned above. If so, extol them in comments below.
- Bob. ↩︎
- Yes, it is tremendously lucky that the hikers Bierce rescues are perfect candidates for enlightenment, to the point that one has to wonder if Bierce orchestrated the accident as a meet-cute. Still, either the hikers would be perfect or they would not be, so 50/50 odds, right? And there’s a story in the encounter either way. ↩︎
- Howard died in 1936. As a general rule, authors’ work tends to be written prior their death. The 1967 denotes when the story was first published. ↩︎
- True story: in 2016 or so, my boss told me not to overthink things. I waited five or six years, then assured her I had come up a 128-step process to determine if I was overthinking something. A week later she realized I was joking. ↩︎
- Not. ↩︎
